House of Fears – review

House of Fears – review

Man, I love it when you randomly watch movies and they surprise you by being good. This isn’t to that they are great films necessarily but that they are fun, decent movies that you don’t regret watching in the least. Such is the case with House of Fears, a movie I caught streaming on Netflix and ya know what, it was pretty solid.

Two step-sisters who are far from friends are pushed by their parents to go together to another schoolmate’s birthday party but when they get to the party the real plans come out – the girls are going to accompany some other friends to a haunted house that is about to open and they are going to get a sneak preview. What they don’t realize though is that the owner of the haunted house had acquired an ancient relic for the haunt and it is a cursed item that brings to life your worst fears. The teens find this out soon enough though as a fun night in the spookhouse turns out to be a fight for survival.

Hey, first off, gimme credit for not saying ‘turns out to be the fright of their life!’. I spared you the corn there so I get a big high five right off the bat, ok? Good. This is a very straight forward horror film. The definition of a pocorn film, but that isn’t a bad thing at all. We need the popcorn movies from time to time to remind us that movies can be fun distractions. The movie is lacking some key details – why is this evil, how does the owner get it back to the building, how does the ‘curse’ operate to name a few – but if you can get past that you get a pretty fun, pretty solid little movie. The acting is decent, the scares are clever, and the sets are amazing. That this is a film set in a haunted house and that they make it a foreboding place, a place to be afraid of is great, but better is that the ‘fears’ are very well done and very well handled. You also have to give props to a movie that shies away from gore. Like I said, there’s issues with logic, and some of the character’s decisions are pretty silly but ya know what, it never derails the movie in the least. The movie is just fun. Nothing you’ll remember for a long time, but just solid fun.

7 out of 10