House of Darkness: New Blood (2018) Reviews

• Decent enough genre effort for the channel

  kannibalcorpsegrinder2018-09-14

  Trying to put her life back together, a single mother and her son go along with her fiancee to his mother's house to check on his elderly mother only to slowly grow convinced that something's in the house with them and a far deadlier secret to get exposed which puts them all in jeopardy. This was a decent Lifetime Channel effort if still a little underwhelming. When this one works, it's due to the surprisingly enjoyable and sometimes creepy atmosphere present in the house. The film manages to mix in quite a few rather chilling moments, from the scene of her standing over the son in the dark shown only in the photograph and the later scene in the bathroom where a force is shown playing with her suggestively before realizing who she thought was responsible is not in the room. Managing to bring out scenes of ghostly shadows playing across the walls behind people or seeing them mumble around the house in dazed bewilderment have a far greater impact due to the setup of the house. The other big plus here is the incredibly dark and twisted story this one attempts to utilize that pops up in the second half. Despite being built up as a solid haunted house film in the first half, a solid twist emerges in the second half that gives this a much darker and chilling type of story where it gets involved with a cult that turns this into a fun time. That this emerges from the fine photograph setup is a great point and soon delves into the series of revelations that give this a really energetic turn in its final half where it turns into the race to get away from the cult and its intentions rather than the haunted house cliches which is rather fun. These here are what make it fun over it's more obvious flaws. Among the most obvious faults present here is the fact that there's just such a wholly dragged-out and sluggish pacing that it really makes the film hard to get through. The unneeded complications to the family life, from the overly drawn-out backstory about her ex-husband leaving her being given in detail to the meetings with her friend talking about the new engagement that give this the backstory that's not all that necessary for this kind of film. It tends to appeal greatly for the target audience, yet that all just adds a lot of extra time to the film that couldn't use for its horror setups. The other big issue featured here is the film's origins prevent it from really delivering the kind of shocks and thrills that would make this story stand out from the gluttony of genre efforts in this style. The format here of a person struggling to come to terms with whether or not the house she's staying in is haunted could provide some decent suspense or shocks, yet instead the supernatural elements are barely featured in favor of character-building and then kept to a minimum when they do occur. Despite building up a quite decent premise within the house, there's a decidedly heavy lean towards the melodramatic here that undercuts a lot of the supposed tension to come from the scares, the exact opposite feeling for those kinds of scenes. These are what hold this one back the most. Rated Unrated/Language and Violence.

• Horror? More like joke

  abelegatis2018-09-23

  Did get scared even once, waste of time, wasnt even very intresting and coulnt wait till something happens and it never really does, like some f-king joke, not horror... It ends never started for real, easte of time