Blu-ray Review: Housebound (2014)

(aka Those Crazy Kiwi's!)
Release Date: October 17th.
Country: New Zealand.
Rating: Unrated.
Written & Directed by: Gerard Johnstone.
Starring: Morgana O'Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, Ross Harper, and Cameron Rhodes.

There aren't a lot of Horror movies that come out of New Zealand, but we tend to enjoy most of the ones that do. At the top of our Kiwi Horror list are films like The Devil's Rock (review), Black Sheep (review), The Ugly, and of course, Peter Jackson's early, low-budget Horror efforts like Bad Taste & Dead Alive (review.)


NZ Horror flicks usually have their own unique feel & way about them, for better or worse (usually for better), and so we went into Housebound with a familiar sort of optimism.

For us, the end results were mixed.

After trying to rob an ATM machine with her boyfriend (and failing miserably), Kylie is sentenced to house arrest, which doesn't sit well with her at all, because the sentence is to be carried out at her mother's house. You see, Kylie is a bit of an angry bitch who hates her odd-duck mother, so to be tethered and trapped in a crappy old house for eight months with Mum and Stepdad is like hell on Earth for her.

EIGHT MONTHS? SHE WON'T MAKE IT EIGHT HOURS WITH MUM! LET THE ODD COUPLE HI-JINKS BEGIN!

After listening to her mother go on about how she thinks their house is haunted, Kylie begins to hear odd noises coming from the basement, which of course she decides to investigate. After she's grabbed by something in the dark, which sets off her tether, her probation officer, Amos, comes to investigate... and reveals that he just so happens to be an amateur paranormal investigator, so, that helps.

DO NOT EVER INTERRUPT AMOS WHEN HE'S PARANORMAL INVESTIGATING!

As they investigate all of the weird and creepy things that are happening around them, Kylie and Amos learn that the house used to be a halfway house that was closed after the murder of a young girl. They also learn that the neighbor is a creep who may just be the one who killed her... and so they decide to sneak into his house to find evidence. You can pretty much guess how that one goes... or can you?!?

WHOEVER IT IS, JUST STAB THEM IN THE GUT WITHOUT LOOKING AT THEM.

Will Kylie and Amos solve the mystery of the dead girl and the creepy neighbor? Is there something far more sinister lurking in the walls of Kylie's new home/prison? Is there something even more sinister than that lurking in plain sight? Far be it from us to spoil anything for you here, but suffice it to say that this movie has more wacky twists and turns than a New Zealand Highway. *We're not actually sure if NZ highways are notoriously twisty or not, we just went with it.

THE CREEPIEST PART OF THE MOVIE.

Housebound was a fun and quirky little movie that we enjoyed, but didn't love, and that's mainly because Kiwi humor isn't really our bag. Not to generalize, but in our experience, the humor found in most Horror Comedies out of New Zealand tends to be of the slapstick and zany variety, and it always feels a bit too simple-minded for our tastes. We may be off the mark with that analysis, but that's just how it usually feels to us, so it's really more of a personal preference issue than anything.  

That being said, Housebound is a fairly funny movie (or at the very least, an extremely witty one), it's just not the type of funny that makes us laugh all that much. You know?

THIS IS ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LAUGHED THROUGHOUT THIS ONE...

Housebound is also at times a pretty creepy movie, boasting a few dark scenes that were genuinely unsettling and intense... of course then some humor would pop up and kill the creepy mojo that those scenes had just established, but hey, the world is an imperfect place.

From what we gather, Housebound was also filmed in pieces by director Gerard Johnstone; he would find inspiration for a scene (but no idea how it would fit into the story), and he would just film it, improv style. Then he'd go back later and somehow work it into the story, which in the end, made the movie as a whole play like some sort of patchwork quilt. You can see it in how oddly disjointed that Housebound felt at times. That sounds like a recipe for disaster to us, but he somehow made it work, to decent effect. Whether that is a good thing or not, is up to you to decide.

AT LEAST THE MOVIE HAD ONE REALLY GOOD GORE GAG.

There's nothing particularly likable about the movie's main character Kylie, but that was by design, so fine. Morgana O'Reilly is a fine actress, and she plays her part really well, it's just that she's such an unbearable asshole to everyone for most of the movie, that it was kind of hard for us to root for her. Then again, her surly demeanor is part of the reason that the movie worked as well as it did.

We liked Amos though. We rooted for him.

IF ONLY SHE WOULD HAVE STARTED RANDOMLY STABBING PEOPLE...

Housebound is one of those movies that you may have to be in the right mood to watch. At least for us it was. It's more of a Black Comedy than it is a straight up Horror flick. It's fun and clever, and it did exactly what it set out to do in grand fashion, even if the end result didn't work as well for us as it did for so many others.

Housebound is definitely worth a rental, or a buy if you're a big fan of goofy Horror flicks.

C+

Housebound is available now on Blu-ray (Amazon Exclusive), DVD, and VOD.

Morgana O'Reilly is in this.