Besides The Babadook, Housebound was probably the horror film that I had heard the most online chatter about in 2014. It won people over big-time in its festival run, and I can see why. It's a well-made and quite funny horror flick, and would probably have pretty wide-appeal - there are some scares and gore, but it would play to non-horror audiences as well.
The film starts with Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O'Reilly) and an unnamed partner trying to steal cash from an ATM. Things go comedically awry, and she ends up getting busted by the police. It's a fun little scene, at lets you know right off the bat that Housebound isn't going to shy away from comedy. Despite being relatively young (maybe mid-twenties), Kylie has a long rap sheet and history of failed rehab assignments, so the judge sentences her to house arrest. Kylie is mortified - and seems to feel that a prison term would probably be a better thing that living at home for 8 months...
Anyways, Kylie settles into her house with the help of Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), security guy assigned to make sure she doesn't leave. He gets her ankle bracelet all set up and tests the boundaries of how far away from the house she can go without setting off the alarm. Kylie gets settled in and right away starts to resent her mother and her mother's super-quiet boyfriend Graeme. One night, she hears her mother call into a talk-radio show and explain how she feels their house may be haunted. Kylie begins to experience some strange things in the house, and learns a little bit about its history - it turns out it's been more than just a residential dwelling in the past. Since she cannot leave, she figures out she has to get to the bottom of this mystery, or her hauntings may never let up.
And... I'll leave it at that. There are some good surprises in Housebound, and much of the enjoyment comes from discovering them.
It's really a well made, well put together film. It's got kind of a post-modern feel to it - there are several shots where writer/director Gerard Johnstone sort of plays with your expectations (i.e having a shot of a mirror, where a ghost would normally show up, and doing nothing with it) or surprises you (by making something happen at a completely different pace than it usually would). I always get a kick out of filmmakers who play with the conventions of the horror genre, and Johnstone does that well here.
Also, for a film that is shot at more or less one central location, it never feels boring or stale. The house has a good look to it (I love the wallpaper!) and is shot in such a way that you have a pretty good feel for where one room is in relation to the next.
Housebound is seriously funny too - there are a lot of big laughs that come from just about every character. While Kylie is clearly the main character, the supporting cast gets a lot of time to shine too. Rima Te Wiata is great as Kylie's mom (playing up the kind of chatty/nosy mom stereotype). I was particularly fond of the security guard Amos, who eventually teams up with Kylie to investigate the house. He gets some of the choicest lines and is probably the most endearing character in the movie.
O'Reilly is solid as Kylie too. She has a lot of good non-verbal acting skills - much of the comedy revolves around her facial reactions/body language, and you can always tell what she's going for. She's kind of an entertaining smart-ass - she straddles the line between being annoying (she's really quite rude to her dear old mom) and being likable, but by the time she's facing the haunting in the house she's won you over.
There are a couple of plot points that get sort of glossed over - it seems like there is going to be some focus on Kylie growing up. Her psychologist mentions her dad, and she is looking at pictures of herself as a kid that seemed to indicate that she had some sort of illness growing up (if I was seeing things correctly). But these are sort of brought up and never really mentioned again. Even though it never really feels like it, Housebound is a little on the long side (it's listed at 112 minutes), so perhaps this part of the story was shot and left out. At any rate, even without it, Kylie still seems like a fully fleshed-out character.
I'd like to get more into it, because Housebound ends up going to a lot of interesting places that you don't really expect it to. But since it's still a relatively new release, I'll leave it at that. It just came out on DVD a couple of months ago and was VOD only until then... but right now it's a steal to rent at $0.99 on amazon instant. What have you got to lose? Update: Now on Netflix!
I would highly recommend this film.
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