Movie Review: House

The movie starts out with couple, Jack (Reynaldo Rosales) and Stephanie (Heidi Dippold) Singleton, arguing over getting lost on their way to a marriage counselor. It's obvious that Jack doesn't want to go. He is speeding down a rural road when a state trooper flies past him.

Jack almost runs the trooper down as he is investigating what looks like to be an accident. The trooper is kind enough to give them directions to get to the highway so that they can make their appointment with the marriage counselor. But the trooper's directions ultimately lead them to the Wayside Inn, an old B&B that is run by a creepy older couple and their equally creepy son.

They don't meet the family right away. Instead, they meet another couple that happened to be stranded and converse long enough to decide that they don't care for each other. Dinner is barely finished when the Tin Man (Michael Madsen) descends on the house with his shotgun and a demand for a dead body by sunrise.

Both couples experience a night of intense psychological terror as they try to outrun and outwit the crazed family, who is more intent on killing them before the Tin Man can touch them.

I liked the performances of Rosales, who played his part of the grieving and guilt-ridden father quite well, and Madsen, who was the ultimate bad guy. The actors who played the creepy family did a good job, too. Heidi Dippold, however, did more screaming than acting.

I loved the premise of the movie and couldn't wait to see if all four guests managed to survive the night. There was a twist near the end that I didn't see coming, which got fizzled out by the typical Hollywood ending.

The movie was based on a novel, written by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, that came out in 2006. I remember buying it and taking it home, only to put it on my "To Read" pile where it was forgotten.

Now, I'm going to have to read the book so that I can immerse myself into their minds and find out how the story really ended. Hopefully, it didn't end the same as the movie or I'm going to be really let down.