STUDIO: Life Size Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2008
STARRING: Meredith Barnett, Aleece Jones, Olivia Price, Matthew Montgomery, and Matthew Stiller
WRITTEN BY: Michael R. Morris
DIRECTED BY: Michael R. Morris
FEATURES: Director Commentary with actors Jones & Stiller
Outtakes
Trailer
Actor Rehearsal

I'll admit that I have a soft spot for low-budget horror. Maybe it's my early adoration for the first two Evil Dead movies or the fact that it's the genre most suited to people without much money in their wallet trying to do something original. That desire to thrill with buckets of blood gave the world Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and countless more films now considered classics. The next great superhero movie is unlikely to come from a complete unknown, but the same can not be said for the next great horror movie. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Fear House is NOT the next great horror movie, but it's certainly better than a lot of the trash released under the banner of the genre in the last few years. The problem with a lot of mainstream horror has been a tendency towards laziness and there's at least a passion for the genre apparent in Fear House with its haunted house set-up that's clearly the brainchild of people inspired by more than a few of the movies we all know and love. That it falls short of the classics that inspired it isn't that big a deal. If you're in the right mood, it could easily be the creepy yarn for you.

Friends and business partners of a reclusive, best-selling author go to where she's been staying to try and figure out why they've lost contact and discover that the poor thing is essentially trapped in a haunted house. Like House on Haunted Hill, the nightmare location in Fear House plays off the greatest dark dreams of the people trapped there and kills those who try to leave. If you leave the house, your innermost fear kills you. A quote on the back of the DVD from Horror Theater Video references Phantasm, Evil Dead, and Black Christmas, but Haunted Hill and even The Haunting were clear influences as well. Fear House suffers from a few of the problems of the low-budget horror genre - cliched dialogue, a couple of stilted performances - but it is also better paced and conceived than a lot of its peers. It's more atmospheric than a lot of movies made on the same budget and even features a few relatively good performances. The effects are a bit too far outside the scope of its budget (great low-budget horror movies don't let their vision exceed their financial grasp) but there are a few quality kills and truly creepy moments. It may sound like faint praise but, with the state of the genre, a lot of horror fans would just be happy to know that you could do a lot a worse than Fear House.

The DVD folks at the fledgling Life Size Entertainment do a good job with the DVD, which goes a long way for a movie like Fear House. Plenty of low-budget horror films have been made inferior by video and audio transfers that did more harm than good but Life Size provides a technical presentation for Fear House that never distracts from the actual film itself. They also provide Fear House fans with a commentary with the writer/director and two stars, outtakes, and even some rehearsal footage.