Satan's back, y'all, but only sort of. Relatively dormant since his '70s horror heyday, in recent films like Antichrist and Jennifer's Body, Satan has been invoked, but not yet successfully resurrected as an organizing theme. Films like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen and The Sentinel elevated horror from its schlocky middle century, reinstating the respect it earned as one of cinema's earliest and most successful genres. And call me a cradle Catholic (all right, I'm a cradle Catholic), but I believe that had something to do with the fact that, in the right hands, there's nothing scarier than the devil. With the rise of the slasher, however, the more unrefined charms of the deranged serial killer took over, and that way torture porn lies. With The House of the Devil, director Ti West goes old school in the best possible way, and yet for all of the film's lovingly, effectively crafted suspense, old Beezlebub can't quite steal the show.
The opening titles make the cheeky claim that in 1980's, 70% of Americans believed in the existence of Satanic cults, and that we were about to see a depiction of a classic case. Next is a long, lingering shot of the back of a young woman's head. She's looking out of a window, possibly at the Church that we eventually see is next door. Sam (the androgynous heroine's name being straight out of Carol Clover's "final girl" theory of horror films), is checking out a new place to live, dorm living with a skanky, inconsiderate roommate having become untenable.
Sam (played by newcomer Jocelin Donahue) is going to need money to make the apartment happen, however, and grabs a number from a flyer advertising for a babysitting gig. Donahue has a delicate face (she's a Jaclyn Smith ringer) and aspect but the tough, hitching stride of a ballerina off pointe; West and cinematographer Eliot Rockett use patient, framing shots to highlight her every movement and long dollies to follow her at shin level as she, say, finally regains entry to her dorm room after her roommate's sexathon subsides. They allow us to build a connection to her in a way rarely done anymore, particularly in horror: over time, quietly, and abetted by the allegiance forged between the camera and her spare frame.
That allegiance begins to fracture once Sam makes it to the house of the title. After one major shock breaks the neck-straining tension of the first forty or so minutes of the film, West spends another half hour simply letting Sam explore the enormous gothic mansion where she has been left alone, ostensibly with an old woman who is shut away in her room. Something is obviously off, but she doesn't know quite what, and neither do we: she walks up and down hallways and stairs, turns lights off and on, opens and shuts doors. I know it sounds like closing time at Home Depot, but trust me, it's riveting.
West stretches the suspense to an almost ludicrous extent, so that every clink and clomp makes you absolutely mental; you begin to beg for the inevitable violent release, even while wondering if the whole thing is some sort of meta-horror ruse. What seems like the film's great strength, however -- the artistic and technical virtuosity brought to bear on this long set piece -- becomes something of a liability when the blood finally starts flowing.
After building up such massive aesthetic capital, the sudden lurch into Satanic territory is kind of a bust; while the Dark Prince is used to owning the third act, he generally insists on at least a little play in the first two. Knowing so little about Sam and her situation (she is the classic loner, lonely girl, framed almost constantly apart) and not having even the vaguest contextual clue about what she's up against leaches some of the power from the final, frenzied sequence. West's focus on pure cinema in the extended set-up is impressive, but he doesn't infuse it with enough narrative information to make the landing really stick. No one -- not even a director as talented as West -- puts Satan in a corner.