ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE - 2015 USA Release: AUG! 9, 2016 New Dynamic Rating: USA: R

Haunted House movies revolving around Found or Lost Footage owe more to television than cinema. I can take the earliest Scooby-Doo cartoon shows, digitally give everyone a GoPro, and it would change virtually nothing in the storytelling.

In fact, at this point, largely thanks to television over cinema and specifically the overlong run of GHOST HUNTERS, found footage movies of "Haunted Houses" have established nearly as many tropes and bromides as Vampire and Zombie movies.

Where the fun of GHOST HUNTERS is enjoyably mocking the goofs who never deviate from their 19 year old template (and the boys at Southpark have lampooned them hard and royally over it), the fun of Lost Footage movies is knowing that they'll take liberties with it.

These movies tend to be super low budget, ultra-indie, and while the crew want to give the audience what they came for they'll nearly always try to experiment with the form, bringing something fresh to the table.

Of course, since these movies are always pocket change amateur hour, they don't always deliver the goods, but as an audience, I feel like I'm exploring with them.

Unlike a big studio movie where the makers have everything they could possibly need to make a hit at their disposal, when a bunch of amateurs make their feature and misstep or stumble, I rarely get the feeling that it happened because they're treating me with contempt.

Hailing out of the Dayton, Ohio mini-production house, New Dynamic, with work largely coming from Producers Matt Brassfield, Eric Widing, and Writer, Actor, Producer, and Director Henrique Couto, ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE has many pluses for a micro-budget of its size. Production values as in blocking, lighting, and sound quality all feel like theater standards. Even more amazing considering it was shot in only three days, mostly in sequence, and nearly all of the dialogue is improvised.

The story is about a husband and wife team of Lana Aaronberg (Joni Durian: BABY SITTER MASSACRE, HELLHOUNDS, HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, THE HORNET'S STING AND THE HELL IT'S CAUSED, SCAREWAVES, APPLECART, INVALID, AMITYVILLE: NO ESCAPE, HER NAME WAS TORMENT II: AGONY, DEVIL'S TRAIL, THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, RAGMORK, OUIJI ROOM, SCARECROW COUNTY) and Derek Roberts (John Bradley Hambrick: SCAREWAVES, DEVIL'S TRAILTHE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, RAGMORK, OUIJI ROOM, SCARECROW COUNTY). Together they are testing the validity of Haunted House claims as they go from one rumored haunted house to the next and proving, one by one, that the Supernatural doesn't exist.

That said, they still build up their audience's creepy hopes with each episode by propounding on the "alleged" fact that a murder or murders happened in the house they are about to spend the night in.

They are assisted in this by their pain in the ass whiner man-child of a camera operator, Ford (Henrique Couto: HEAD CHEESE, FILTHY MCNASTIEST, SATAN'S HOUSE OF YOGA, MARTY JENKINS AND THE VAMPIRE BITCHES), who early on nearly gets himself fired before he's given this one last chance.

On their roadtrip to a season's worth of purportedly haunted houses, the three stop to pick up Lana's old college chum, Sophie (Iabou Windimere: HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, SCAREWAVES, THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, SCARECROW COUNTY), an artist who has a semi-popular online comic strip.

Ford convinces himself that he has a shot with Sophie and tries to take charge of the show, constantly insisting on retake after retake to get the shot right. Not knowing what Ford is up to, and assuming he's committed to helping them get their best, Lana and Anthony are eager to comply, grateful even with Ford's newfound professionalism.

Some professionalism is what this group needs.

Once they finally reach the murder house, Derek springs a surprise on everyone with a local "Psychic Medium" named Tabitha (Erin R. Ryan: BATH SALT ZOMBIES, EASTER CASKET, BABYSITTER MASSACRE, HELLHOUNDS, SKINLESS, APPLECART, HER NAME WAS TORMENT II: AGONY, DEVIL'S TRAIL, THE HORNET'S DISCIPLE AND THE SCARS SHE LEFT, THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE) who he found through Craigslist. Whatever mental issues Tabitha has disrupts the carefully laid plans of Lana and Derek, nearly derailing it all entirely.

There are an awful lot of missed opportunities in ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE and what is in its place is too much time taken with Ford's infantile belief that playing pranks on everyone, repeatedly, and scaring Sophie repeatedly, will get him somewhere with her. When it finally gets through his thick skull that it won't, the movie takes still more time as he creepily attempts camaraderie with her, even though it's obvious that all of his talk, and talk, and talk (while ignoring her obvious discomfort with him, yet again), keeps circling back to having sex with her.

Henrique Couto, who plays Ford, also Co-wrote the meager script along with John Oak Dalton (AMONG US, RAZOR TEETH, HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, SCAREWAVES, AMITYVILLE DEATH HOUSE, THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, SCARECROW COUNTY, AMITYVILLE ISLAND). Henrique directed ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE as well, so it's largely his show and it spends most of its time with Ford - the least interesting character in the movie, and Tabitha - the second least interesting character in the movie.

This is not a slight on the actors, but the way they were written for the movie. Ford and Tabitha are given way too much development time while contributing almost nothing to the story, while the other more interesting characters - the only ones who drive the story - are given too little development time and too much reacting to Ford and Tabitha time.

That said, another factor that adds to the suspension of disbelief for this movie is that all of the actors, while pleasant in appearance, don't have that Hollywood Nip & Tucked' Up look. Lana, Anthony, and Sophie all look like real regular people you would see anywhere and the minimal make-up adds to the credibility instead of working against it.

Also, the fact that nearly all of them have worked on other projects together may have lent an air of comfort among them and how they physically behaved with one another, which you would expect of married couples and friends.

Further, when they move there's a natural unassuming quality to it. They don't give that over-produced sensation of moving from, to, and stopping on a mark here, wait, now move to this mark... here! When something surprising happens the camera doesn't go from a long shot and dolly into an extreme close-up so tight you can see that the actors had their nose-hairs waxed.

ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE follows the formula of a found footage movie where, as you'd expect, a lot of time is spent on goose chases and red herrings that seemingly lead to nowhere. This is how the plot device goes, historically leading all the way back - again - to at least SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU?

That said, I have no doubt that anyone watching this, even if they have no dreams of ever working in movies, will imagine many moments where a creepy or spooky thing would have been awesome if it happened right.... Now!

The best part of the movie is the first 78 minutes. The worst is the last four which features the most tacked on, dramatically drawn out, terrible death scene in recent memory.

It's not like the movie couldn't have that type of ending, just not one shot and performed like that.

That's why I give ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE a barely earned three Shriek Girls. It's not good, but it's good enough and sad to say, better than about 90% of the "Horror movies" that are coming out of Hollywood.

This review copyright 2023 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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