1.6.2010

7. Lost and Found
8. House of the Devil

Lost and Found is one of my guilty pleasures. It's the type of movie that I'd stumble upon on cable and just be drawn to it. It's not great or anything but it's entertaining and has enough laughs to make you keep watching. David Spade stars in it along with French actress Sophie Marceau. Artie Lange is here as well as someone who idolizes Spade just a bit too much. Here's the basic story...Marceau is Spade's new neighbor. She owns a dog. Dog keeps escaping from her and getting loose. Spade manages to continually find the dog. Eventually, Spade decides to just keep the dog and use its disappearance as a means to get closer to Marceau so she can see what a swell fella he really is. It doesn't sound like much (and it's really not). But the cast manages to make it work.

House of the Devil is set in the 1980s. It's a time when talk of satanic cults was running rampant. There were lots of stories in the news back then of folks being abducted and sexually abused by these cults. It's referred to now as the "Satanic Panic". I remember hearing stories of cult members in long robes performing rituals in the woods on stretches of dark and lonely roads. The stories used to freak me out because, as a kid, I didn't really know any better. But I digress. House of the Devil is a 1980s movie, through and through. It looks, feels and sounds like the 80s. It's set in the 80s. Check out the huge Walkman and the rotary phone!
Director/writer Ti West seems to be pretty heavily inspired by those days as it plays as something of a love letter to the films of the decade. The biggest knock on this flick that I'd heard prior to seeing it is that it's fairly slow going. It is. It definitely takes a bit of time to really get rolling. However, I thought it worked. The fact that it took some time really allowed for the feeling of tension and dread to rise. You know something bad is going to befall our protagonist. Watching and waiting for it to finally arrive makes it that much more effective.