A Review: The Houses October Built

So, this afternoon, I was bored and looking for something to watch. This, naturally, led me to Netflix. I decided I felt like a nice horror flick(probably my longing for October to arrive) and stumbled upon a film from 2014 called “The Houses October Built”. After watching it, I really wanted to get my thoughts on it down SOMEWHERE because I don’t know I like giving my thoughts on movies, fight me about it. “The Houses October Built” is a found footage film that follows 5 friends going on a road trip the week of Halloween, with the goal of finding the “most extreme haunt”, “haunt” being a haunted house. Their goal is to reach a haunt named the Blue Skeleton, going to other haunts along the way. As Halloween, and their destination, get closer, things get progressively creepier and weirder. Towards the end, without spoiling too much, they reach the Blue Skeleton and get. . .much more than they bargained for. The ending is what I have the hugest issue with, but we’ll get to that later. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking right off the bat- it’s a found footage film, it’s gotta be horrible. But, surprisingly, it isn’t horrible at all. . .but it isn’t great, either. It’s a decent little horror flick to watch out of boredom like I did, but it isn’t something I would have spent money on to go see, so I’m glad I watched it on Netflix. I’ll start with what I liked first. Usually, I’m really not a found footage flick fan, but I didn’t hate the found footage aspect of this film. The actors had a natural feeling relationship with one another, feeling like genuine friends having fun and going on a road trip together. The plot of the film is also really great, and I think if it had been executed a little better, it could’ve been much better of a film. It’s a premise I’ve never seen in a horror film before, so it gets points for that. Now, on to what I DIDN’T like about the movie. It was slow. Really slow. And while, towards the end, it had me actually biting my nails, 98% of the time. . .it wasn’t that scary. Perhaps mildly unsettling at some earlier points, but nothing to get nightmares over for sure. Now, on to my BIGGEST issue with the film: the ending. I won’t spoil it, but it’s certainly not much TO spoil, honestly. It is perhaps the worst ending I’ve ever seen in a horror film, or any film for that matter. The last 15 minutes of the film is all build-up, and you think something awful and terrifying is going to happen. And what does all that build up lead to? . . .a very underwhelming end. The ending is, to be fair, a pretty creepy thing to think about going through yourself. But, at it’s core, it was an ending that didn’t meet the tension and build up that led up to it. So, overall, “The Houses October Built” is a film with a great premise and has a ton of unmet potential. Would I recommend it? Not really. Is it the most horrible film out there? Absolutely not, but there are much better ones out there to watch.