Taglines: Fear reaches out… for the girl next door.
The story opens with a scene from the point-of-view of a psychotic killer, who looks like a teenage long-haired girl wearing a night-dress, killing first their mother and then their father with a hammer in the middle of a stormy night. The events are blurred and warped as if the killer is deranged or drugged.
Four years later. A newly divorced woman, Sarah Cassidy (Elisabeth Shue), and her teenage daughter Elissa Cassidy (Jennifer Lawrence) find the house of their dreams in a small upscale town. But when startling events begin to happen, Sarah and Elissa learn the town is in the shadows of a chilling secret. As told by the neighbors: four years earlier a teen girl named Carrie-Ann Jacobson killed her parents in the house next door and then fled into the woods.
The townies believe that Carrie-Ann drowned in the river yet her body has never been found, leaving others to believe that she lives in the woods. Ryan Jacobson (Max Thieriot), is the sole survivor who at the time was looking after his ailing aunt far away. Ryan now lives alone in the house; the neighborhood hates the house as it drives down their property values. Bill Weaver (Gil Bellows), a local police officer, appears to be Ryan’s only supporter.
Against the wishes of Sarah, Elissa and Ryan begin a relationship. He tells her that he accidentally injured Carrie-Ann while they were swinging one day, he was supposed to be watching her while their parents were inside – his mother was getting high while his father watched TV. Carrie-Ann fell off the swings as she wanted to go higher, and Ryan says that she got brain damage which makes her extremely aggressive.
Ryan returned to the house just after the murders with his aunt, who died a year ago before Elissa and Sarah moved in. It is revealed to the viewer that Ryan has secretly been taking care of a woman who appears to be “Carrie-Ann” in a hidden room. No locals know of the existence of “Carrie-Ann”. Carrie-Ann escapes the room on two occasions and appears to attempt to attack Elissa. During the second escape attempt, Ryan accidentally kills Carrie-Ann while trying to hide her from a teenage couple and keep her quiet. In his grief, he visits a diner where a student waitress attempts to comfort him, giving him a slice of cake on the house.
While visiting Elissa’s battle of the bands, several high school students vandalize Ryan’s car and attack him. In defense, Ryan breaks Tyler’s (Nolan Gerard Funk) ankle and runs home. The remaining students decide to burn his house down. Elissa stops the fire. Elissa then looks in the garbage and finds a packet of tampons. She also finds a blue contact lens and a purse with a student I.D. inside of it on the counter. She hides these facts from Ryan. Whilst inside, Elissa finds Ryan’s secret room. She is attacked by Carrie-Ann as Ryan arrives home. At this moment, it is revealed that the current Carrie-Ann is actually the waitress from the diner who has been held captive and made to look like Carrie-Ann.
In order to keep Carrie-Ann’s presence a secret, Ryan knocks Elissa out and ties her to a chair. He reveals that Carrie-Ann actually died during the swing accident but that he still needed Carrie-Ann in his life. He knocks out the student and says he will make Elissa his new Carrie-Ann.
Film Review for House at the End of the Street
The pointedly generic title sounds like either a remake or a genre-bender along the lines of The Cabin in the Woods. But despite an intriguing setup, sharply drawn central characters and a lead performance from the luminous Jennifer Lawrence that elevates the material a few notches, House at the End of the Street is a by-the-book horror thriller that’s low on scares and suspense.
Directed by Mark Tonderai, who made the 2008 British indie chiller Hush, the slick-looking film is stronger on production values than storytelling. Following the Jim Sheridan dud Dream House, it marks the second botched attempt by screenwriter David Loucka to juice up tired horror conventions in less than a year.
Working from a story by Jonathan Mostow, Loucka samples from a variety of sources that range from Psycho to The People Under the Stairs. But from the moment Plot Point A is disclosed in a big reveal almost exactly a half-hour in, the film becomes first inane, then dull and then ludicrous. While the screenplay works overtime to keep throwing convoluted twists at us, it becomes increasingly easy to stay a few beats ahead.
The principal saving grace is Lawrence as Elissa. The classic modern horror heroine, she’s an independent-minded, fearless, whip-smart high schooler who looks sizzling in a tank top. Following her parents’ divorce, Elissa moves from Chicago to small-town Pennsylvania with her mother, hospital worker Sarah (Elisabeth Shue), looking for a fresh start in a house that backs onto lush state forest. But wait a minute, what’s that eerie place just beyond the trees?
Turns out that house was the scene of a double murder four years earlier, in which a young girl hacked up Mom and Dad one night. She must have had her reasons. In any case, the kid was presumed drowned, but her body never found. Local teens like to feed rumors that she’s still alive, wandering the forest at night, while their parents just bitch about the notorious crime’s drag on property values.
But the house is not empty. The girl’s loner brother Ryan (Max Thieriot), who was reportedly away at the time of the killings, still lives there and forms an attachment with Elissa. His aura of vulnerability and hurt clicks with her history of collecting damaged kids and making them her project. “Sometimes people can’t be fixed,” frets Sarah, a former high school slut now making a belated effort to be a better parent. But Elissa won’t be deterred. She’s also too cool to be creeped out once Ryan starts acting weird.
While Lawrence is such a magnetic presence that she holds your attention even as the story takes a dive, the actress also highlights the weakness of the script. Why a girl as savvy and street-smart as Elissa would stick around in situations long after the danger alarm has sounded makes less and less sense, even within the elastic logic of the genre. And Lawrence projects such kick-ass strength that she seems a match for any menace.
Sadly, Shue’s Sarah is denied the requisite redemptive “Get away from my daughter!” line in the climactic violence. But pretty much every other cliché of the formula is mined. What’s more irritating, however, is the absence of foreshadowing for key plot triggers like the extreme violence that preppy scum Tyler (Nolan Gerard Funk) and his buddies unleash upon Ryan, or the failure even to mention any investigation when it appears that more than one girl from the area has gone missing. And why is well-meaning cop Weaver (Gil Bellows) so trusting and protective of Ryan?
In lieu of sound plotting and actual tension, Tonderai attempts to amp up the atmosphere in postproduction, with jump scares, flickering lights and frequent manipulation of sound, visuals and image speed as Theo Green’s music thunders away. But these are all standard tricks in a banal entry that pretends to be something more complex.
The digitally shot movie does have a sleek look; cinematographer Miroslaw Baszak makes good use of the widescreen frame with some unsettling low angles, edgy handheld work and beautiful lighting of the forest scenes. And with a couple of minor exceptions, the actors are all more than capable. What’s lacking is an intelligent script.
House at the End of the Street (2012)
Directed by: Mark Tonderai
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Thieriot, Gil Bellows, Eva Link, Nolan Gerard Funk, Allie MacDonald, Jordan Hayes, Krista Bridges, James Thomas, Hailee Sisera
Screenplay by: David Loucka
Production Design by: Lisa Soper
Cinematography by: Miroslaw Baszak
Film Editing by: Steve Mirkovich, Karen Porter
Costume Design by: Jennifer Stroud
Set Decoration by: Garren Dunbar
Art Direction by: Shane Boucher
Music by: Theo Green
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, thematic elements, language, some teen partying and brief drug material.
Distributed by: Relativity Media
Release Date: September 21, 2012
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