House of 9: Part 1

Well, here we go; I’ve been putting off this review for far too long already, and now my schedule is clear and all the stars have lined up like the kindergartners of fate, so I have no choice but to dive right in and share the misery of the first film I found Netflix surfing: House of 9.

Horror has never been my preferred genre. I’ve never felt the urge to strangle a kitten over a horror film-- only a gecko at the most, but this is because horror, by and large, sucks. Most horror films I’ve seen are comprised of equal parts pointless gore, jump scares, and characters I wish died before the killer actually arrives so I can leave early but sadly no film has yet captured that sentiment. With the popularity of the Saw franchise, these things are only getting worse too. Seriously, go to the theaters and try to defend any of the horror films playing, but you shouldn’t do that because you are wrong and will be slapped. All they are now are random gore and bitchy human beings becoming random gore—there’s no weight to the violence portrayed on screen, no sympathy for the victims of these attacks, and nothing to keep me from punching the screen from the sheer lack of entertainment I feel except the price of the TV. But this may not prove anything! Statistics can be wrong! Maybe this film, like Black Swan or Oldboy, will rise above the ugly stereotypes the rest of its brethren perpetuate. Maybe this will be the grand exception that helps to restore my faith in a tarnished genre that needs a heroic film to save it from-

I just read the tagline that proudly proclaims that it is “borrowing from Agatha Christie and the plots of Saw and Saw II.”

Sigh.

Alright let’s get shit over with already. The film is from across the pond, so at least the shit has kickass accents and, oh wait, I forgot, Dennis Hopper is in this. Dennis Hopper the American who made a living off of American characters. Fantastic. Let’s just take a look at this man’s track record, shall we? According to IMDB, this man was in Easy Rider, the original True Grit, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Super Mario Bros., Waterworld, and then literally nothing I recognize nor anything I think you’d recognize. My point is his career is following a pattern of decline, to put it charitably (the uncharitable version has much more swearing. I have to think of the children after all). Anyway, at the helm of this particular capsizing canoe made of granite and failure is Steven R. Monroe, whose work as a cameraman is impressive and versatile (including Pee-Wee’s Playhouse) but as a director is responsible for the remake of I Spit on Your Grave, a title single-handedly responsible for causing hundreds of people to die from embarrassment at ticket windows across the country. So that gives a pretty good indication on where we’re going with this one.

Alright, so we open up with the credits played over a montage of images of the inside of a house from a video feed camera, random people we don’t know being kidnapped, and images of London from the point of view of a first-time acid user. Montages are a motif in this movie. Let’s count them! This is one! Hahaha! Seriously, though, the editing in these first few minutes is actually somewhat sickening; not because of gore, but because the tonal whiplash of the images on film keeps changing so rapidly—and the scenes to establish that THIS IS LONDON LOOK BIG BEN THAT’S BRITISH RIGHT? U.K TOTALLY YEAH are shot in such a poor fast-forward—that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on or why I should care, and its actually confusing me a little. What happened to that last person? Did they get kidnapped so that they could receive a tour of London by the world’s most insistently English cokehead? And why does the video feed footage have to be spliced in to this? And why is the music a slow paced hymn that doesn’t fit with the tone?

When that montage finally comes to an end and the film crashes from its sugar binge, we find one of the kidnapped characters awaken. She’s at first rather bland about the situation, but don’t worry, that’ll continue throughout. She starts to explore her surroundings, which is basically a bunch of gray marble hallways. That’s it really, that’s basically the whole setting. Gray hallways, some gray bedrooms, a gray meeting room with an upstairs area, a gray kitchen and some gray basements. At least the coloring is consistent, I thought as I reached for the bottle of Jack with the toothbrush I was informed is the proper instrument of drinking this beverage, noticing the curtains are also gray as are the bricks blocking up the windows. Whoops, spoilers. Anyway, this setting is actually rather disorienting despite its simplicity; I had trouble figuring out where people were half the time, because the geography of the space is not well defined in the slightest. Everything looks the same, so there really are’t any features to give location any meaning. It’s like the Where’s Waldo? puzzle with the ten million Waldos and they all look the fucking same!

Anyway, the female character finds some people sleeping in a room, tries the front door of the house, keeps trying the door, tries again, finally takes the hint that maybe it’s locked, takes off her scarf, goes…why did the scarf falling get a slow-motion shot? Was that really fucking important, Mr. Monroe? Is that a symbol of some sort? Because it never leads anywhere. I know it for a fact. So what’s the point? Don’t look at the guy next to you, I want an answer! Why?!!

Well moving on from that, the female character, who I will name Survivor because obviously she’s going to survive. Come on, look at her. She’s going to live. It’s obvious. Survivor, in a weird long shot, goes to the meeting room, goes to the upstairs portion, looks at a blocked window, moves across the balcony, trips while looking at a weird painting, and now all of a sudden starts to really flip out about her situation. Guess the fall hurt a bit, because it seems to have jogged her memory that she was kidnapped and is in a strange place with the windows blocked and the doors locked. Apparently, she’s a bit slow on the uptake, but let’s not hold that against her, it only took her four minutes to realize she might want to leave soon. She continues running around, etc., then she passes out from panic. Good transition guys.

She awakes to a bearded Dennis Hopper smiling over her. Everyone, let’s take a quiz—You have just passed out in a unknown house after being kidnapped, discovered that every exit is blocked, and saw a weird painting . You wake up to see a bearded Dennis Hopper smiling that smile. Don’t pretend you don’t know that smile. That smile that says “I’m paternal and kind-hearted in appearance but clearly I’m a sociopath-molester in disguise.” What’s the proper response? If your answer wasn’t “scream,” you’re clearly brain damaged.

Did I mention he’s stroking her head? Because that’s happening. What’s the creepy level at now everyone? It’s at “that guy on the bus” level.

Also, Dennis Hopper has an Irish accent. Let me say that one more time, because I need to make sure you got it—Dennis Hopper has an Irish accent. The Lucky Charms guy is more convincing than him. No, not enough, sorry, the fake Irish accent you used in middle school to make an alcoholics joke is more convincing than Dennis Hopper’s accent. Of course he’s a Catholic priest, that’s self-evident! And of course he’s not the only Irish character, don’t be silly! The other one's a drug addict. The Irish! They’re either priests or drunk.

Anyway, Survivor doesn’t scream (following her character nicely) and sees a bunch of people who we saw were also kidnapped and also a bunch of people who we didn’t see. Are they impostors? Are they pulling the strings the whole time? What insidious purpose could they have?! The answer is no, no, and nothing, they were also kidnapped-- just off-screen. SO WHY SHOW US THOSE OTHER PEOPLE BEING KIDNAPPED?!! WHAT DID THAT ACHIEVE?!! It would have been equally effective to show just one person being kidnapped and not subject us to that stupid montage! We would have gotten it! We aren’t stupid! Well okay I am. A little. I am watching this thing.

The characters do have names and we even get to hear them once or twice but they leave so little impact and I care so little about them that I’m going to give them colorful nicknames to help me relieve the boredom and also to properly identify the characters in the same manner the writers clearly did. We have Survivor, Father Hopper, Bitch, Druggie, Cop, No Impact Man, No Impact Woman, Frenchman, and Hurtful Ethnic Stereotype (I do love that HES is the only black character in the movie, and yes! He does rap! How did you know?). See? There’s nine of them! And they’re in a house! Hooray!

Anyway, some guy with a creepy voice who isn’t Jigsaw, honest, comes on over the intercom—he’s clearly very polite since he waited for Survivor to wake up before he began his monologue—and he tries to explain what’s going on. Apparently he picked them at random for “what they are” rather than who they are. Go ahead and try to make sense of that one. I certainly did and I got nothing. Is it because they are all disappointing examples of humanity? That is my guess. Also, he’s “settled with” all of the characters’ friends and family so no one is looking for them. And how did you accomplish that, Mister Intercom? You must have shilled out maybe ten dollars a person to make their friends and family forget they existed. They have integrity after all! He even says that it was “quite easy” in some cases. No! You don’t say! I’m sure Bitch did so much good with her life she’ll be dearly missed by all!

So the deal is that everyone in the house is a guinea pig in this guy’s social experiment/wanking material (never a good idea to mix the two, Mr. Intercom). He’s set up hidden cameras and microphones all over the house, and everyone in the house has to kill each other until there is one survivor (should I capitalize that? We all know who’ll win). The Survivor gets to leave with 5 million dollars and—wait, dollars? This is Britain! Dollars are basically the equivalent of toilet paper there! You spend all this cash to set up this elaborate house and kidnap participants in your weird Big-Brother snuff film, and you didn’t bother making the prize the currency of the country they live in?! Clearly this man is a mastermind for the ages!

But that’s the premise they’re going with, and since I already made one reality show joke I don’t think another is appropriate except to mention the Intercom mentions that this is like a reality show. No, really. This is probably where the writers took the inspiration for the wonderful characters we have to endure now.

The first things of these characters mouths are the stupidest questions and phrases one could ask or say in this scenario. “Who the fuck was that?” Does it matter? I think who in this scenario does not affect your situation in the slightest. “Was that it?” Do you need anymore?! Seems pretty self evident what’s happening! “This has to be some kind of a joke!” Okay, let’s recap. They kidnapped you! Do you think that’s a joke too?! But the most infuriating is “He told us only one will live. What does that mean? Is someone going to kill us?” Wow, Survivor, that panic attack must have been a stroke or something because there is NO WAY YOU DON’T GET WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW! Everyone but you knows what the creep on the intercom wants! Are thick are you? Does light not escape from the emptiness of your skull?

Oh. My. God. No one else has figured it out either. She isn’t the exception. She’s the rule.

I’m pretty sure I’ve abandoned all hope for these characters at this point. We are twelve minutes in at this point, and I’m positive all hope of escape has dried up as fast as the brain cells of every person there. They should drink some water or antifreeze or something.

Cop, who possesses an absurd mustache that is probably the envy of the Victorian-era detective story he was ripped from, is the only one to have figured it out, meaning he has to explain it to the audience -I mean characters- and meaning he’s the only character I kind of like at this point. He also shows them his gun, as only good things can come from a gun at this point. HES begins taunting the cop because he’s a Hurtful Stereotype, the Frenchman explains it again because he’s French and is clearly insane and thus understands what’s happening. He seems almost boisterous about it. I wonder if that means anything for later. Nahhhh! It’s probably nothing. Then No Impact Man actually talks about the legality. LIKE THAT MEANS ANYTHING IN YOUR SCENARIO! WAKE UP! I think everyone kind of forgot they were drugged and kidnapped, otherwise the movie would trip over its own shoelaces. And it wears Velcro shoes.

The Cop states the obvious, which is literally what I just said above, and then says only he and Father Hopper are using their heads. Father Hopper has said basically nothing this far. So this statement is actually true, in my opinion, since he hasn’t said any of the stupid shit the other characters have been spitting out like watermelon seeds made of idiot. The cop refuses to play the Intercom’s game, which is when HES starts antagonizing the Cop and implying that if he gets the gun he’ll kill them all and take the prize without a second thought. I’m surprised this movie doesn’t come with an apology letter to everyone because of this character. This ranks up there with the stupidest shit one can say in this scenario, and since this is written as a part of this character’s identity the blatant racism of this character is amplified. What the hell does he think will happen if he says something like that? That they’ll give him the gun and line up quietly?

They try battering the door down with the table from the meeting room, but that fails. Not surprising, since whoever made this place would probably expect something like that. Surprisingly, Father Hopper does not suggest they use Ba-Bomb. Then the Cop tries shooting the window. Bullets have been known to be super effective against cinderblocks, but strangely they don’t work here.

Montage of them searching for a way out and them achieving nothing. Two! Hahaha!

Bitch goes straight for the liquor cabinet, apparently misinterpreting the words “way out of here” to a drastic degree. The Cop thinks that alcohol in this situation might be a bad idea for some reason, and confiscates the liquor cabinet key, angering Bitch. Everyone starts talking about the money and the game, with Frenchman relishing every word of his dialogue like it’s made of milkshake or something. I just get a bad vibe from him for some reason, I don’t know what it is really. They talk about desperation for a while because the movie really wants to be deep even though it’s shallower than tea spoon with a hole in it. The Cop insists that no one will play this game and shows he’s all noble and stuff. He even proclaims it to the video camera watching him. I’m sure he’ll survive. He’s just so inspiring.

This sort of thing continues for a while. I would go into more detail, but seriously there isn’t any point. Every character is basically the one label I gave to them. I hate them all equally at this point, and desperately want each one of them to die so now I don’t care about the moral dilemma of the characters so much as I wish the movie would end so I can eat some nachos. They prattle on, and antagonize each other (because that can only cause good), and it all goes nowhere. All of a sudden, HES talks about his rap career, and then starts rapping. Poorly. I won’t go into detail except to say Pitbull has more talent than this guy. A drunk Pitbull. Who also suffered a stroke so that he has no idea what words mean.

It’s hard to even make a joke about how dull the movie is at this point. I could go on and on, but I’d be repeating myself much like these characters repeat themselves and their one personality trait. HES raps in his sleep. There’s probably a joke to be made there. God save me I have no idea what it could be. We are only a third of the way into the movie at this point. Maybe I should stop and take a break at this point and finish up in a bit once something interesting happens. And make some nachos. Nachos are always interesting.