DVD - The Roost

Ti West is someone who I became interested in after having seen House of the Devil. That film was extremely well done, and felt like a return to what made old school horror films so great, valuing suspense and dread, over gore and shock. I recently watched his debut feature, The Roost, and, while the film about a group of young adults on their way to a wedding getting sidetracked to a farm with some malevolent evil waiting for them was not quite up to par with his later film, or his most recent film, The Innkeepers, once it got going, it got a lot better. Its major handicap was its molasses pace in the beginning. You can see that West is trying to establish that dread and suspense, but in this film, it just ends up being a little much, and you end up looking at the clock after a while. Overall, it was a decent first feature, and if you haven't seen any of his other films*, I can vouch that House and Innkeepers are considerably better.

*I haven't seen Cabin Fever 2 or Trigger Man.

A Letter From Ti West

Shop Lifters of the Media-World Unite

Dear Internet,

This Friday (Dec 30th) my film THE INNKEEPERS will be released on VOD an entire month before it's released in theaters (Feb 3rd). This means it will likely hit the Internet torrent sites within 24 hours and seed thousands of downloads in the coming days.

WHY I THINK YOU SHOULD PAY FOR INDEPENDENT MOVIES. It's not the money. Personally I don't care about the money. As sad as it is to admit it's very unlikely I will make a dime off of the release of the film. My previous film, "The House of the Devil," had a similar release and was very successful - That was in 2009, and to this day I have made ZERO dollars off of its success. I do not own the films, and by the time any profits would trickle down to little old me (writer/director/editor/producer) they would all have been mysteriously soaked up into vague expenses, random fees and outrageous overages. This is the nature of the business and I have come to accept it. As long as I don't own my films - something I give up in exchange for someone with much deeper pockets affording me the budgets to make them - this is how it goes. It's a trade off and I'm fine with it. I don't really care. What I do care about, however, is your support. I care very much about that.

Every time you purchase something you are making a statement. You are creating physical evidence that something has value. If something has a high value, then it becomes in high demand. So if you make a concerted effort to support lesser-known, interesting and esoteric things (Art?) then you are helping make those lesser-known things more popular. I'm sure we can all agree that there are incredible movies made every year that never get the attention they deserve - That's not the movies' fault. That is our collective fault for not being proactive enough to GO OUT OF OUR WAY to support them.

So yes, I want you to go out of your way and pay for my movie. Not because I'm greedy, but because if the movie makes money (whomever for) that's tangible evidence of a paying audience out there for movies like mine. For independent films. For something different. Not just bland remakes/sequels or live action versions of comic books/cartoons/boardgames. This is a powerful time for the consumer. With a small platform release like ours (VOD/Theatrical), it's been made incredibly easy for you to support the film...You don't even have to get out of bed.

I do personally benefit from you paying for my film. So do my friends and collaborators. Maybe not in a direct, financial way; but in the gaining of support from consumer/fans whose collective interest convinces rich people to keep giving us budgets (hopefully bigger ones) for the types of movies we make. These investors only do this based on the accountable value of a movie. Not the content. Hopefully everyone knows that by now, but maybe there are still a few ideological people out there reading this who think movies get financed because they are simply great stories worth being told no matter what their commercial appeal. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions...They don't.

How about this: If you went into a store and there were two similar products - one made by hand by someone local who you knew (perhaps a small business in the USA?) and the other just churned out by a machine (perhaps not in the USA?) - wouldn't you pay a tiny bit more for the one made by the person you knew? Especially if you knew it was actually benefitting that person? Wouldn't that be better than supporting the machine-made, impersonal, uninspired version? Wouldn't you want to support them?

Where we choose to spend our money should reflect what matters to us and what we want to support. If independent film matters to you, then do me a solid and pay for the film instead of downloading it. It's not a huge financial commitment, but it has a huge financial impact. I am not a corporation, I am not independently wealthy, I don't come from a family of the industry...I'm just a regular dude who made a movie and wants to keep on making them. I can't do that without your help, and it would be very much appreciated.

Lastly, if you live in a city where the film is being released theatrically, please go see it in the theater. It took over a year to meticulously craft the film with the intent of it being seen projected on 35mm on a big screen with loud surround sound. This was all done for your benefit. It is meant to be seen in a theater - It is after all...A movie.

Sincerely,

Ti

DVD - The House of the Devil

There is a new generation of filmmakers that have been trying to ape many of the 1970's and 80's "classics" of the genre, from well known slashers to B-movie video store shelf jockey's. The majority of the time, I'm positive these filmmakers have the best of intentions, but all too often, they end up wearing there inspirations on their sleeves, and making less than inspiring films. Ti West's latest, The House of the Devil, is the only film I've ever seen that actually gets the look and the feel of that era dead on.

Jocelin Donahue plays Samantha, a college student who wants to move into her own apartment and get away from her over sexed dorm roommate. She finds the place of her dreams, but has no idea how she's going to come up with the deposit, AND the first months rent. Upon returning to her dorm, after looking at the apartment one last time, she finds a notice for a babysitting job, and calls the number. She's lead to the Ullman household, a creepy Victorian style mini mansion, housed deep in the woods. With her best friend in tow (played by Greta Gerwig), Samantha meets the incredibly creepy Mr. and Mrs. Ullman, and finds out they haven't told her the complete truth. There is no baby to watch over, but, in fact, it is their mother. Samantha is worried about this, and tries to back out, but when Mr. Ullman waves 400 dollars in her face, she accepts. After all, all she has to do is sit there for a few hours. She doesn't even need to check on the woman, unless she hears something go wrong. But things aren't what they seem in the Ullman house, and Samantha is soon to find out that she's not there to watch anyone.

House of the Devil is classic, old school, horror. It is a slow burn, with climactic moments spread throughout the film, and an ending that's so crazy it will leave the TRUE fan of movies from that era very satisfied. Donahue is perfect as the shy, understated lead, an innocent who simply wants to make enough money to move into her own place, to be her own woman. Gerwig delivers well, for how little of the movie she's actually in, and Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov are significantly creepy as the Ullman's. Ti West has a real victory on his hands with this film, which is something I never thought I'd say about some one who's previous film was Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. If he keeps making films like this, I'll watch.