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Looking to escape the stress of the city, the couple packs up with young daughter Sarah and trades the fog of San Francisco for a quiet country getaway. They don’t yet know that their new home was the site of two horrible crimes and locals still whisper about a dark presence driving its occupants to murder. But Kelly and Brian are about to find out firsthand when paranormal activity amps up and odd behavior becomes ordinary for a husband, wife, and child taking a slow descent into madness.
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Pick up what the movie is putting down and you’ll soon sense the only ingredient missing is a foundation built on an Indian burial ground. It’s possible that “House of Darkness” was written by a fictional character, too. Curiously, there currently isn’t a screenwriter credited on the IMDB entry, on Lifetime’s webpage for the film, or within the broadcast version of the movie itself. Kelly tells the police that she believes Brian, possessed by the evil force, intentionally died in the fire to stop himself from harming Sarah. The police suspect Kelly killed Brian over their troubled marriage for a $3 million life insurance policy.
Every Justin Long Horror Movie, Ranked - MovieWeb
Every Justin Long Horror Movie, Ranked.
Posted: Sun, 21 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Living with my Mother’s Killer (2024 Lifetime)
Kelly hires a psychic who confirms that the house is haunted and gets the hell out of there. Kelly’s sister Jamie and her son stay with them, but the scary things keep happening. Kelly sees more kids in Halloween costumes, Brian spends time in the shed and see the neighbors walking around sexily and hooks up with the lady… or does he?
A couple's new home comes complete with strange, echoing voices and a violent history.
As for Kelly, Fletcher, too, is stuck playing out an under-imagined type, in her case the beleaguered perfect wife. For Kelly truly is blameless, her identical response to every situation—her husband’s drinking, her teen daughter’s increasingly odd behavior, the occasional dead pet—is a pert, long-suffering sigh, often coupled with a passive-aggressive word or two of gentle rebuke. Even her position as the sole sensible one amidst the spooky goings-on in the house is undermined by how uncurious she is when, say, she finds a smoldering hunk of unidentifiable meat in her new stove and responds with a mildly distressed shrug before tossing it into the bin.
Throw a dart anywhere on the board of typical haunting/possession tropes and you’ll hit something in “House of Darkness.” A little girl speaking to someone who isn’t there. A worried mother experiencing inexplicable visions of her own. A disbelieving husband poo-pooing all suspicions of evil entities as nonsense. An imprisoned mental case and backstory-blathering cop connecting exposition dots in the last act. Ruth explains that the presence in the house got inside her mind and drove her to poison her family.
Kelly races home as Brian threatens to harm Sarah over the phone. Brian traps Kelly in his workshop, but she uses an ax to break out. She finds her daughter safe and takes Sarah across the street to Clark and Ellen, who are revealed to be an elderly couple.
This movie felt like a fever dream!
Despite Kelly’s insistence, Brian still refuses to leave the house. Get the scoop on new movies with exclusive clips, and more when you sign up for Lifetime Movies email updates. LaBute deliberately evokes Bram Stoker with the names "Mina" and "Lucy," as well as with other elements, but this effort doesn't really seem necessary, other than providing a clever way to market the film. Additionally, the ending, while shocking and effective, makes everything that came before it less impactful.
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Like their daughter popping out of nowhere in scary-ass costumes and things burn in the oven. There are also sounds of children playing, and Brian dreams he murdered his wife. Sarah is acting straight up possed, looks terrible, and decapitates her birds. House Of Darkness plays like a horror movie told secondhand by people who don't like or understand horror movies. Justin Long and Kate Bosworth star in this seductive thriller from director Neil LaBute (The Wicker Man).
On the other hand, betting men and women might suspect that any actual inspiration comes from Long Island instead of San Francisco. Brian’s transformation from jealous husband to potentially crazed killer comes complete with a continuously carried ax. Insects swarm someone summoned to investigate the haunting. A possessive spirit drives inhabitants to kill their families.
October 31, 1957 – Two costumed trick-or-treaters knock on the door of Andrew Keating, principal of the local elementary school. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands. But hey, maybe we're better off not knowing the exact true origins of Lifetime's House of Darkness or what really happened in the end — that just makes watching it all the more terrifying.
Both Long and Bosworth have become familiar faces in B movie land, yet they have an opportunity to turn in career-best work here. Long takes his most ridiculous scene, the boasting phone call, and somehow makes it work, while Bosworth plays with quiet and menace and seems to relish it. All in all, this is a welcome outing for LaBute, whose career wildly derailed after his infamous previous stab at horror, The Wicker Man. Writer-director Neil LaBute returns to his low-budget indie roots with this sly, slippery study of men and women, although it loses some of its power due to familiar genre conventions.
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