House of Purgatory

The movie had good potential but the story didn't make sense. Its understandable the the teens had to face their secrets, but why torture a girl that was sexually abused by her uncle? If anyone deserved torture it should be him. This movie had potential but should have made more sense. And sadly, the ending was not really an ending

I will have to say I'm a sucker for "haunted house" stories. I was zipping through the menu for On-Demand and found this entry into that genre. It seems an urban legend is being passed from town to town about a legendary haunted house that is SO scary, the managers will actually give YOU money back for each floor you complete! So, off go four friends (leaving a Halloween party) in search of this house. What they find is way more than what they bargained for. First--and foremost--I would like to compliment all involved with this film. They have proved that "cheap" doesn't have to mean awful. The viewer can easily tell this was made on a shoestring budget, BUT the direction, the makeup, and the writing push this attempt to the forefront. Each minor detail is "covered", i.e. if you're supposed to go up floors, why do you start the haunted house going down? Now, the reasons may not always be plausible, but we all know how horror movies work. I thought the acting was much better than average, especially with the caca usually attached to these films. The weakest character was the "skeleton" man (he just wasn't creepy or menacing enough for my tastes), but (thankfully) you do not see much of him. I recommend this effort. It certainly isn't going to win any Oscars, but this installment into the haunted house genre is leaps and bounds better than most. Rated "R" for brief violence and some naked backsides.

This film starts off as promising. There is some good dialogue and the characters are generally interesting and believable. Then somehow several of the characters are just dropped as our four mains (not necessarily the most interesting of the characters introduced either) decide to ditch their party and go find a haunted house. Once this happens things slowly start to go downhill, not only does the ditching of these other characters make their scenes at the beginning completely pointless (why not just start at the haunted house?), but it means that things that looked like they were going to come into play later actually don't. So we get stuck with the four leads as they go through this house, and even that can't hold together long. There is just no pacing in this movie, it builds you up and then lets you down. I did quite like their approach on what is really scary in life, but most of the time it doesn't seem like the characters should really be going through what they are, which again could make sense, but the ending undoes that too. So overall this film feels like it is chasing its own tail, almost as if it had two completely different writers that had completely opposing ideas about what film they wanted to make. There is some good here, but it is buried underneath a pile of confusion and mistaken misdirection.

"House of Purgatory" is based on the urban legend of a remote haunted house attraction that is so frightening, visitors get their money back if they can complete the entire creepshow. According to the legend, no one has ever finished the course. Interesting premise, unless the fabled haunt turns out to be one of those ultra-Christian spook shows that feature the sins of pedophilia, homosexuality, driving while drunk, and oh yeah, sex out of wedlock. Four annoying teenagers (who are terrible actors in their late 20s pretending to be high school stereotypes) leave a dull Halloween party to seek out the haunted attraction, and hey bingo, they find it. Getting into the house for free is like, awesome!, so in they go. The silly scares begin to take on surreal qualities and suddenly the foursome gets split up and must confront the Evangelical evils based on their deepest secrets. The drunk driver who's killed someone and runs away is given the shortest time and not much punishment. Evidently vehicular homicide is some pesky annoyance, like acne. The sex before marriage "girl" gets tied to a gurney, and suddenly her Christian mommy and daddy show up. Boy howdy, now little miss open legs is hugely pregnant! Mommy, who's carrying a bible, castigates the girl for her predicament and leaves, not offering a shred of compassion. Daddy just takes off his glasses and follows mommy away. Naturally, there's a bloody painful birth with a skull-painted guy in surgical scrubs and a hoodie acting as midwife. Hooray! It's a baby made of hamburger, which is all you can guess from the 1.5 nanoseconds you can see it. At least this poor unwed teen mom didn't abort, so she should get points for that. And now, the guy who's secretly gay although everyone thinks he's a badass jock. Like you couldn't see this coming at all. He's left to wander the high school hall, and finds his locker glowing and filled with pictures of man butt. His daddy appears, calls him all the things you know he's going to, and beats his son. Later, the jock "homo" is surrounded by his classmates and daddy, who proceed to beat him to death with what look like pool cues. There's an implied rape by daddy and his cue. Why the poor guy is killed for his secret is homophobic in the extreme. The treatment this character gets was telegraphed during the opening sequence in which three high school "girls" are carving pumpkins and getting drunk on another mommy's stash of vodka. One of these girls spends a long time reviling a male classmate because she believes he's gay. Finally, and the most degrading storyline, is the victim of child abuse who gets another meeting with her pervy uncle and a pillow across the face while he molests her again. Why is this person is being punished for the actions of the uncle? This is revolting. Are we supposed to think she was at fault, perhaps luring the uncle and maybe enjoying the abuse? One wonders if the director of this idiocy got money from some Fundamentalist group to vomit up this garbage, or perhaps he's got a secret of his own he's attempting to exorcise? The only real horror here is that it did get made, and although only available on direct to DVD or the shallow end of some cheap streaming service, it still sits there waiting to kill your soul by telling you what a sinner you are. Absolute crap, with a terrible ending you've seen 1000 times. Avoid.