HOUSEBOUND

Following an attempted robbery of a cash machine that goes disastrously wrong, teenaged tearaway Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly) is placed under house arrest. An electronic detection bracelet is clasped around her ankle and she’s carted off to the family home that she previously couldn’t wait to escape from.

Her mother Miriam (Rima Te Wiata) seems affable enough. Ditzy, motormouthed, but well-intended. Miriam’s boyfriend is a strong silent type, also harmless. It’s the house itself that truly imposes: a dark, dusty, oversized monstrosity that creaks in the night. It’s hardly surprising that Miriam believes the place to be haunted.

Kylie is quick to scoff at such suggestions when she overhears her mother trying to convince a phone-in radio DJ of the house’s spiritual troubles. But before long she also starts to hear strange noises. Kylie becomes convinced that something sinister lurks within the building’s shadows.

Regular visits from social worker Dennis (Cameron Rhodes) and local security guard Amos (Glen-Paul Waru) do little to calm Kylie’s nerves. The former is sceptical, blaming any anxieties on Kylie’s bi-polar condition and a penchant for amphetamines. Amos is a blundering wimp. He does, however, moonlight as a budding – albeit useless – ghost hunter. So he’s willing to consider that something wicked resides within the house, which allows for some hilariously inept attempts at pinpointing the source of the apparently paranormal activities.

With her bracelet tag preventing her from leaving the property’s grounds, Kylie steels herself to unravel the mystery of the house’s increasing "hauntings" – with seemingly only the chatty, possibly mentally imbalanced Miriam prepared to believe her claims.

On paper, it may sound like HOUSEBOUND is little more than a supernatural riff on 100 FEET. Without wishing to spoil things, there is also an element of THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS to be found during the latter half. But dismiss the film as a mere blending of the two would not only be lazy journalism, but would also criminally undersell what is one of the most enjoyable, perfectly pitched horror-comedies in recent memory.

HOUSEBOUND, from first-time feature director Gerard Johnstone, is great fun. It wastes no time in setting up its ingeniously simple premise and keeps rolling from there. Johnstone’s script is clever: it delivers chills and laughs in equal measures, the audience never having to wait too long for either, while craftily building each character into some of the most likeable protagonists the genre has seen in some time.

Kudos must go to the casting department too. They have found some wonderfully quirky actors. Te Wiata is genuinely funny, in a manner which warms the viewer to her even when you wonder just how weird she actually is (is she the reason for the estranged relations with her daughter, for example). Waru has a lot of fun portraying the patsy, wide-eyed and sincere even when turning up in the dead of night in his pyjamas. Rhodes is a slimy idiot, a brilliantly realised one, the type that Peter Jackson used to write so brilliantly for his early home-grown efforts (this is also a New Zealand production). O’Reilly, best-known on these shores for appearing in the TV soap "Neighbours", steals the show with a driven, feisty and authentically disenchanted performance. She really is excellent – a resilient, believable heroine that you can root for.

Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper’s score helps the many suspenseful scenes attain a satisfying degree of tension; the set design successfully conveys Miriam’s house as a brooding host to menace and ill-foreboding. The scares are, arguably, lightweight, but there are enough of them – and they’re handled deftly enough – to keep the viewer glued throughout. Gore is employed sparingly, making one final-act moment of comical Grand Guignol excess all the more effective.

Balanced neatly alongside such horror tropes is the humour. For the most part, it’s delivered by way of successfully acerbic one-liners. But, come the final 30 minutes or so, Johnstone really ups the ante with some fine absurdist moments which are guaranteed to have their audience on the edge of their seats AND howling with laughter at the same time.

I thoroughly enjoyed HOUSEBOUND. There was a point midway through where I feared it was about to run out of steam; the 102-minute running time felt like it was about to really stretch out a simple plot. But then, at precisely the right moment, another element – a murder mystery – is thrown into the mix and the film becomes all the more intriguing for it.

HOUSEBOUND is presented uncut on Metrodome’s UK DVD. We get the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, in a transfer which has been enhanced for 16x9 televisions. The picture quality is predictably excellent. Colours and sharpness are all in check, while blacks hold up supremely well. For such a naturally dark film, it’s good to report that there is no noise to be evidenced.

English 5.1 audio is clean and evenly balanced throughout.

An animated main menu page includes a scene selection menu allowing access to the film via 12 chapters.

Bonus features begin with an audio commentary track from Johnstone, producer Luke Sharpe and executive producer Ant Timpson. Mirth and trivia blend well in this informed, fast-paced track.

We also get a small selection of inconsequential deleted scenes.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS and STAGE FRIGHT.

HOUSEBOUND really deserves your attention. In an age when there is so little fresh horror output that can genuinely be called fresh, this is a film offering laughs, warmth between characters, scares and superbly edited action in equal measures.

Review by Stuart Willis