House of Darkness (2022) - Review

House of Darkness (2022).  Starring Justin Long, Kate Bosworth and Gia Crovatin.

One and a half stars out of four.

What pisses me off is that this movie has the potential to have been something better than what the final product became. It has a great premise.  To be honest, the story (if paced properly) would have been excellent for an anthology horror series like Masters of Horror  or Creepshow.  That said, this movie could've been padded out in a way that would've been passable entertainment.

Instead, we get an opening with Justin Long and Kate Bosworth driving at night.  They drive into a gated residence, which reveals itself to be a giant gothic castle.  Red flag right from the start.  Before entering the domicile,  we have to listen to stupid, awkward dialog from Long spazzing like a dork that's never been on a date before and annoying dialog from Bosworth, where she perpetually answers questions with questions.  I swear this goes on for the first fifteen minutes of the goddamn movie.  Finally, she gets around to inviting him in the house.  We get to hear more of this dialog.  They enter the house, we listen to more of this garbage.  It just keeps going until at least 35 minutes into the movie.  

So I assume the title is derived from the fact that this "house"  is revealed by Mina (Bosworth) to have power outage problems.  This does not raise any concern with Hap (Long), who continues to babble like an idiot.  After some prolonged prick teasing from Mina, along with a stretch where she disappears and Hap brags to his buddy on the phone about is latest conquest, we're introduced to Mina's sister, Lucy.  Mina and Lucy?  Gee, I wonder if they're vampires, given the Dracula character names?

So the sister Lucy takes turn entertaining this moron, giving him house tours, also seductively flirting with Hap's dumbass . . . and it just goes on.  The basic gist is this is a feminist revenge vampire plot, where the protagonists seek payback from male Chauvinist pigs like Hap.  The problem is that nothing of any real interest happens in the movie until the last twenty minutes.  Which that last twenty minutes is fantastic.  But this comes around to my initial point.  There could've been so much more added to this story to keep viewer interest.  Instead, we get non-stop dialog.  And that could work too.  But since most of the conversations consist of Hap babbling while the sisters remain vague and mundanely mysterious, it's a chore to watch this film.  It's clear the creators thought this would make for an excellent slow burn, but it ends up being cringe.

Directed by Neil LaBute, who brought us the infamous 2006 remake of The Wicker Man with Nicholas Cage.  I can't fathom how a director that created such an over-the-top yet entertaining film as The Wicked Man  can turn something out this dull.