MOVIE REVIEW - House At The End Of The Street

Seems we just can't resist making more of these supposedly scary movies that all seem to look the same.  And that is certainly apt here with, House At The End Of The Street.

Even the name of this movie seems predictable, out of place ...and it is.  As "the end of the street" reference actually has no real bearing on this story at all.  Up front, this is a very forgettable movie that will fall into the trap of  being a mild hit with younger movie goers.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.   House is the story of a high school girl and her single mother who move into a house as a rental after the mom divorces a lousy father.    They know going in that the house they've voluntarily chosen to live in alone, is next door to a house where a horrible double murder took place 4 years earlier.   A young daughter kills her parents in the night.   Now, what mother/daughter duo would do that?  I'm thinking none.  But the "rent is good." 

The whole town just wishes that the house would be torn down and the property be donated to the park service, but the 21 year-old son now lives in the house.  And he's vilified by the entire town.  But he's fixing the house up to sell.   Turns out that the sister who committed the double murder is begin "kept" in the deep recesses of the basement of the house by the son as a prisoner.   But why?  And she continually tries to escape and kill some more.  Well that's the big story here,   Any more info would give away too much.

This movie is so much like a thousand movies before it, it is borderline insulting.    All of these flicks look the same and in the end have the same ending.  There are a couple of plot twists that give it some semblance of originality, but not much.   This is a very manipulative movie, where they use a young girl as the subject as being basically not being savvy enough to take care of herself, or spot trouble that is serious and potentially dangerous.   I think young women today are far different than that.   This is insulting to young women, grown women and single mothers in general.  Plus, the writing is putrid, as much of this is snooze-worthy, and entirely too long.  And not by a little.

This has all of the obligatory scenes.  Many of them in the dark, you  know when everyone who is petrified but no one turns on the light for some reason.   Also, the where the middle aged cop is killed trying to rescue our young girl, and of course decides he won't call for backup before he puts his life in danger.   Tons of  noise scenes that end up being nothing.  It's all so incredibly predictable.   There is really nothing very scary here, and most of this is just plain stupid.  But, the door is open for more of this..  Gosh, we can't wait.

House At The End Of The Street.    A loser.