Review: House at the End of the Street (2012)

(aka The Sweaty Tank Top Games)
Release Date: On DVD/BD on January 8th.
Country: USA and Canada.
Written by: David Loucka and Jonathan Mostow.
Directed by: Mark Tonderai.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Theriot and Gil Bellows.

Is there an actress in Hollywood that's hotter than Jennifer Lawrence is right now?

At 22 years old, she's not only been nominated for an Academy Award already, but she's the star of the crazy popular Hunger Games franchise, she's one of the X-Men, her role in Silver Linings Playbook is garnering critical acclaim, and she's just been named the World's Most Desirable Woman by Askmen.com.

What else is left for her to do?

Running around all sweaty in a tank top in a Horror movie, that's what.

I'm not even joking when I say that J-Law spends most of this movie in a tank top, while in various states of wetness. Yes, that's a win for us.

Sarah and her hot, sweaty daughter Elissa (along with her tank top collection) move to a small town to start fresh in life. Turns out that their idyllic new town has dark secrets though, the kind of secrets that involve a young girl murdering her parents and running off to live in the woods. Now, the creepy girl's brother Ryan lives next to Sarah and Elissa, and odd things are happening...

Nothing creepy about him.

Ryan has secrets too. One of them is that his sister never ran away at all. No, he has her locked in a secret room in their hidden cellar, and he keeps her drugged and bound to her bed. No wonder everyone in town thinks he's creepy and hates him, because he's pretty creepy. Looks like a rat, too. Anywho, Elissa sees Ryan for who he really is, despite everyone else warning her against it, and befriends him. Let the dysfunctional teen romance begin!

Also, let the "nothing good can come of this" snooping begin too.

It doesn't take long before Elissa is breaking into houses and finding hidden cellars, secret bedrooms, and... I guess I should stop here so as not to spoil the rest of the movie. Really though, if you don't figure out what's going on by this point, movies may not be your thing anyway. I mean, they telegraph the twists in this thing, and they do it early. Reeeeal early.

Can Ryan save her in time?

 

If not for Jennifer Lawrence, this movie would be on no one's radar. She's huge now, and this tame, sub-par teen horror flick would have never seen daylight if not for that fact. Luckily for us, J-Law is not only hot as sin, but she's a good enough actress to make a movie like this watchable... to a certain point, at least.

J-Law filmed this movie between her Oscar nominated turn in Winter's Bone, and her meteoric star-making turn in The Hunger Games, which probably explains why she seems so much better than the material she's working with. I guess the bottom line is that she's way over qualified to be anywhere near a movie like this.

That shirt should be nominated for worst supporting actor, because those things are flopping all over the place. Zing!

The script is the real weak point of this movie, as the writing allows for some truly silly plot points to shine through; ideas and plot points are abandoned and forgotten; characters do silly things and act as if they have no clue about anything; and cliche runs amok in this one.

It almost feels like they made a ton of cuts to the script and just went with the remains, figuring it would somehow work out alright. It didn't. For the most part, this movie is directionless and dull.

Just put this one behind you, J-Law. Forget it even happened.

The blood and violence in this movie are definitely of the PG-13 variety; it's there, but most of it happens off camera. There are TV shows that push the violence envelope way more than this movie even comes close to doing. Bummer. This could have been fun had they pushed the envelope a bit.

What a waste of good rape tonic.

Not one item of clothing is shed in this movie, but Jennifer Lawrence still looks pretty hot in her skimpy outfits. Look this missed opportunity for nude greatness as a way to exercise your imagination, I suppose.

Go ahead and use that imagination, pervs.

 

For 12-year-old girls who don't watch many horror movies and are likely to be scared by anything they see, this movie is probably aces. For just about everyone else, House at the End of the Street is a dull, cliche- ridden exercise in PG-13 tedium. Had they added in some harsher elements and pushed the story more towards the Rated-R rating range, it may have played better. As it stands though, this is one movie that will piss off or bore most people that watch it.

D+

Alright, let's just cut to the chase here; Jennifer Lawrence's sweaty boobs are the only thing about this movie worth nothing. Sweat and boobs!