Foreclosing on "The Perfect House"

The Perfect House is a terrible film.

I wanted to get that out of the way early, in case you are pressed for time.  If you have other items on your plate and just wanted a quick “yay” or “nay”, just imagine me holding my nose, turning my thumb down and making raspberry noises, and then merrily go on with your day.

The Perfect House is an anthology film centered on, well a house. More to the point, it’s about a series of gruesome murders spanning years that take place within its walls. It’s not a terrible idea for a movie, yet the lack of finesse, or even rudimentary ability to tell a simple story or deliver a credible line of dialogue result in a mess that comes off more like a checklist of scenes and visuals producers think will sell a horror movie.

The middle short provides the best (or worst depending on your point of view) example of all things wrong with the film. A man keeps two caged pens in the basement. One houses a young woman he’s enslaved for years, driving her mad through a daily ritual of verbal and physical abuse, rape and torture. The second pen holds a revolving gang of victims, whom he proceeds to beat, mutilate and murder in front of his captive, driving her mad over the course of many years and corpses.

Sounds like a decent idea for a short, right? Unfortunately for the viewer, Hulbert and Kent seem solely concerned with delivering the type of torture porn experience that appeals to the hardest of hardcore Hostel fans. The segment screeches to a halt due to stilted dialogue delivered in clumsier English than the worst dubbed Hong Kong martial arts film you’ve ever seen. It makes me question whether anyone responsible for this film has ever had a conversation with another living breathing human being.  

As far as the remaining two shorts go the first one wins simple by being forgettable rather than offensive to one’s intelligence. While a storm rages outside, a family huddles in the basement. Their close proximity opens up old wounds and thinly allegations. As lightning flashes on various sharpened instruments, the family is bumped off one at a time until the lone survivor exits the bulkhead.

The final short centers on the world’s crankiest neighbor. Pissed off that he lent out his weed whacker only to find it trashed, he invites the family of five over for a “good bye dinner”. Though uncertain means that go unfilmed as it would require some forethought as to how one middle aged man ran down and over powered a whole family without drugging them or locking them in, they find themselves tied up in the basement and at his mercy.

It seems like a little point yet speaks to an antipathy towards the audience that borders on antagonism. Hulbert and Kent seem to believe their intended audience is far too stupid to ask how one person managed to thwart five people. You’re telling me that one squirrelly eight year old (these creatures tend to be slipperier than a greased pig) isn’t going to wriggle out the front door and run screaming for the neighbors? But for those responsible the film, cause and effect are simply trifles that stand in the way of one man taking a weed whacker to another man’s face. Even a rare interesting idea like handcuffing the two young brothers together and forcing them to fight to the death lest their mother gets her throat cut are filmed with the oafishness of a man using oven mitts to handle a camera.

The one bright spot comes from Monique Parent as an oversexed real estate agent giving a pair of prospective home buyers a tour of the home in the vignettes that tie the sections together. No stranger to B- movies or late night Cinemax fare, Ms. Parent takes the lame single entendres the script calls for vamp them up enough to offset the otherwise cringe inducing interactions with the doofus husband and wife combo.

The Perfect House is less a film and more a cynical by-the-numbers checklist of what cash grabbing producers believe modern horror fans want in a movie. It assumes a barrage of violence that leaves its principals caked in gore can cover up all degrees of stilted dialogue and the complete lack of any clear storytelling direction.  It assumes making a horror movie is “easy”, and all manners of shortcuts can be taken, because you as a viewer don’t know any better to separate the great from the tripe.  It assumes you as a horror fan are nothing more than a lapdog salivating for nothing but a piece of meat being hacked into chunks on a screen. It assumes you, as a horror fan, are a moron.