House of Bodies (2016) User Reviews

A way below average thriller with few redeeming qualities

[Seth_Rogue_One · 3/10 · 24 November 2014]

Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda's scenes in the movie is basically one very long interrogation scene split up to parts.

A fairly pointless one may I add as well, where Terrence Howard plays a cop who's interrogating a serial killer played by Peter Fonda about a copycat of his.

It's obvious that all their scenes where shot on the same day in the same location, and that they both did it for the money, and that the producers needed some stars in the movie to attract viewers, and that's the sole reason why they are in the movie.

They aren't bad per se, but if they weren't famous their scenes would have been cut down to a couple minutes, or cut out entirely, hell they'd probably wouldn't have been filmed in the first place to be honest.

The rest of the movie is about the 'House Of Bodies' which is not a haunted place even if that's what it sounds like but a website with 'web-cam-girls' in a apartment complex re-enact murders.

It's really slow, and riddled with plot-holes, and the only reason I didn't absolutely hate it was because one of the web-cam-girls forms a friendship with one of her clients who happen to be a mute.

But yeah the rest of the movie is a tiring peace of work, with overall annoying characters and pointless scenes of people clicking on websites etc etc.

Queen Latifah steps by in a web-chat as a counselor or something to the mute young man, but that's about it.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

[wormsoftheerth · 3/10 · 14 July 2014]

Despite having some pretty good ideas behind it, this movie was terrible.

Good:

• The setting was interesting. A bunch of cam-girls who live in the house of a serial killer and people can pay to (watch them) act out serial killer-y fantasies. That's pretty unique and adequately creepy. You get to see some gore-y shots of dead girls and related. It had all the elements of a good horror movie...they just were totally misused.

• A few good actors. Terrance Howard and the serial killer dude had good chemistry. The deaf guy and the main girl were fine. Queen Latifah's cameo was well done. She should've played a bigger role though, would've been funny to see her as a main character in a slasher.

• It was shot well enough. Sets were good.

Bad:

• Everything else. The storyline was written in such a disjointed way that it made no sense. It jumped around and was needlessly difficult to follow. You have the main storyline of a guy in the house murdering women which was super generic but decent. Then you have this other storyline with Terrance Howard which had almost NOTHING to do with the main storyline and was used in a way that rendered it completely pointless (way to waste your best actors). From the preview I expected this to be more like Silence of the Lambs, but it wasn't at all. The concept of a dude watching these girls die via webcam was OK, but not executed in an interesting or substantive way. It wouldn't have changed much if that part wasn't even in the movie (sadly, the same goes for Howard). And just when things start getting interesting, the movie prematurely ends with no resolution whatsoever. It felt like the director didn't quite know what type of movie they wanted to make and used elements of several (silence of the lambs, feardotcom, untraceable, etc), but was unable to connect and interweave them.

• Maybe it was just the version I saw, but the sound was abysmal. The music was WAY too loud and all of Howard / killer's dialog was nearly incomprehensible.

• There are also some stupid plot holes like how the kid magically "hacked" and got the power to turn back on in the house / website.

Funny how the world goes on without you

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 10 February 2018]

The film builds the story using headlines. Henry Lee Bishop (Peter Fonda) is a convicted necrophiliac serial killer. There is a copy cat killer. The story of the killings awkwardly unfolds after the fact as Detective Starks (Terrence Howard) is questioning Bishop about the copycat killings.

Bishop's old house is owned by "House of Bodies" an Internet web site that specializes in recreating the killings as snuff porn for paying customers. The film subplots on Kelli (Alexz Johnson) a shy college girl who needs cash, but hasn't come to terms with nudity. She meets Kyle (Harry Zittel) on line, a shy mute.

Once the first clue hit the table, the film lost its mystery appeal as a who dun it. In fact I didn't care, I just wanted to see Kelli after all the tease and hype. The production had the makings of a good plot, but ruined it by making a boring film. They could have left out the interrogation and just made it a copy cat killing with less camera shy girls.

Parental Guide: F-bombs. No real sex. Rear and photo nudity.

Don't waste your time

[colonel52 · 1/10 · 1 March 2014]

OK I watched this and it is a really boring and bad movie. the cast was OK, some OK acting, but the script and story were lame. Terrence Howard spends the whole movie talking to peter Fonda in a interrogation room. All this does is after a long time tells who the killer actually is.

I gave this movie one star for the cute blonde who sort of has the main role. She made the movie a little interesting. The deaf guy who she makes friends with online was OK till things go bad and then he acts like a retard. The killer is someone who used to live in this house and now shows up out of nowhere to kill all in the house very leisurely.

Everyone today has a cell phone, but not these kids? so even when 2 of the girl realize a killer is in the house , 1 hides, and the other try to sneak out. also they are running a sex fantasy website to pay the rent on the house. the movie would have been better without Fonda and Terrence, and just make it all about the house. Bad Director and bad story overall.

Terrence Howard and Queen Latifah are what brought me in

[mrshurtado · 3/10 · 13 April 2018]

The premise is a good one. Serial killer is caught. House he murdered victims in is turned into a webcam house. New girl befriends first client, mute boy. Terrence Howard goes to interview serial killer because new murders are poping up just like his. Serial Killer returns to house to kill girls. Mute boy sees it and tries to warn web cam girl. She doesnt believe him. Turns out the serial killer in jail is actually the father of the real serial killer still at large. Aside from little stupid things like the killer being extra slow, mishaps like Terremce Howard holding files then exiting room with no files, the guy getting his face cut up and all of a sudden he just stops making noise... Details that dont mix just throws me off. The acting was OK but the execution of the plot could've been better. Mute guy, the famous actors and the guy who gets his face cut up were good. Ive seen it twice so its not terrible!! Predictable but not that bad. I would love to see Queen in a real horror movie tho. I doubt she would sign up to do one where she dies first so it would be fun to watch.

Promising premise rendered useless

[gabriel_sanchez · 1/10 · 3 September 2023]

House of Bodies builds itself on a interesting premise, but lacks on execution, revision, and ending. It delivers a bad experience that could have been better because the premise was promising.

The premise is interesting enough to hook you. Recent murders by a copycat of Henry Lee Bishop, a convicted serial killer, seem to close to the source material to be true. This similarity leads detectives Starks and Ramos to confront Henry Lee Bishop.

After this hook, the movie goes downhill.

Let's start with the plot holes, because there are plenty.

So, for whatever unexplained reason, one Tracy runs this business where she hires women to this Big Brother house where they get naked for subscribers and might make some tips. Cam girls, per say. The movie does not explain why Tracy runs this shady business.

Early in the movie, we see that a murdered is at the house and Tracy knows him enough. We also don't get why. By the way, kudos to George Katt's acting throughout the movie.

Then we close in on Kelli, seemingly our protagonist of this beat. She joined the business because she needs money to pay for her college, a fact we get from a lousy call from her mom where the voice interpreter was clearly reading the script emotionless. She is shy and regrets her decision, but, literally seconds later, she gets this private message from Kyle and, out of the blue, she is kinky and in love with Kyle, and vice-versa, which is just unnatural - a plot device to move the story forward.

This Kyle guy is a pro on programming, as we can see from the innumerous Yahoo HTML popping up on the screen - I'm a programmer, so that caught my eye fast. He is so good that he is able to hack into the house's system to restore the power. How? Well, you better just believe the story.

The biggest plot holes for me are the following ones.

Tisha tells Kelli that she is replacing a former girl that died. How? Why? Well, either I got brain damage while watching the movie or the movie didn't explaine why, dismissed the plotline altogether.

The second plotline is pointless. The exchange between detective Starks and Henry Lee Bishop renders itself useless when we see that Starks knows everything, he is just spitting that onto Bishop for whatever. Shame, though, because that's where all the budget went.

House of Bodies could have been a better movie if they had edited the script one more time. Had they filled out the plot holes and improved the ending, we'd get a better story. The way it ended, House of Bodies is a terrible experience.

The pros...

• An interesting premise that might hook you for the wrong reasons.

• George Katt's acting. Enough said.

-

The could be better

• Chemistry between Henry Lee Bishop and Starks.

• Reason why Starks met with Henry Lee, which looks dumb when you know why.

The cons...

It never felt boring or slow but it never really grabbed you and sucked you in either. Fluff-horror but entertaining.

[cosmo_tiger · 7/10 · 20 January 2014]

"You wanna talk about dead girls?" Henry Lee Bishop (Fonda) is a serial killer on death row for a brutal series of murders. The home where he went on his killing spree has been turned into a web based chat house where users can log on and talk to a woman who will reenact murders for them. When the girls in the house begin to actually be killed off Detective Starks (Howard) notices a similarity between the currant murders and the Bishop killings. He questions Bishop about what is going on. For personal reasons I'd rather not get into I have a strong dislike for Peter Fonda so really any movie with him in it automatically has two strikes against it. That being said he is only in this for about 10-15 minutes so that did help. As far as the movie goes it's nothing amazing. It is a pretty cookie cutter horror movie that is pretty predictable the entire time. There is a little twist to make it more exciting but nothing that is totally out of the blue. Your basic watch girls get naked and die movie. It never felt boring or slow but it never really grabbed you and sucked you in either. The best way to describe this is a fluff-horror movie. All of that said the movie is pretty entertaining and that is really what a movie should be after all. Also don't rent it just because Terrence Howard, Peter Fonda and Queen Latifah are in it, they are in it very little. Overall, an entertaining but generic horror movie. I give it a B.

Murder mystery meets murder reenactment website; worth seeing Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda.

[suite92 · 8/10 · 19 November 2013]

Henry Lee Bishop is on death row for a series of grisly murders. Years later, he's still in jail, solitary mostly, and similar murders happen. Detective Starks investigates, including going to the prison to talk to Bishop eyeball to eyeball.

A bunch of young idiots run a simulated-sex-and-murder-reenacted-over-Internet sort of business. They strive for realism. They fake each other out. It seems the director intends that we don't know what is real or not with this group.

A deaf, speechless young man plays video games and visits gory websites. One of these is 'House of Bodies' which supposedly was inspired by Henry Lee Bishop's place of residence. This is the website of the idiots mentioned above. In each room the young women re-enact murders committed there. Our young man reads all this on the site. That's the site's marketing ploy.

That's what the detectives are not seeing: the website seems to have generated at least one copycat killer.

Tracey runs the house and the site. Kelli is the new recruit who is a bit gun shy. Tisha is more accustomed to the work. Sadey left the job before she was murdered.

The deaf boy logs into the site, and Tracey assigns him to Kelli to talk to. They get to know each other a bit. Sadly, the killer comes in, then starts taking out the staff.

So, who gets out of this alive?

-----Scores-------

Cinematography: 9/10 Usually excellent.

Sound: 8/10 Usually quite good, but Terrence Howard was badly miked. AM radio in the desert sounds better. The incidental music was good for creepiness.

Acting: 8/10 Worth seeing for the interactions between Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda.

Screenplay: 8/10 Much better than I expected. Plot progresses well, and the detective solves a mystery.

I was entertained.

[ForeignFear · 7/10 · 19 May 2013]

*****WARNING: SPOILERS*****

House of Bodies is a bit of a back-and-forth roller coaster, a feature that I like if it's well- executed. This movie does it quite nicely, in my opinion. Although it's predictable in the fact that everyone but the "good girl" dies, I enjoyed the irony behind it.

There is some nudity, as with a lot of movies in the genre, but it is mild and far from distracting to the viewer. The characters were believable, although there were certain scenes that threw in the element of convenience for the sake of letting a certain character live longer. To go off of that, I would have liked a bit more violence, and less of the inmate and detective scene.

Overall, not a bad flick. Give it a watch on Netflix, I'm glad I did.

"Silence of the lambs" meets "Home Alone"

[ealesnj · 9/10 · 4 December 2018]

This movie is amazingly horrifying .. Visualise something as scary as Silence of the lambs set in a Home Alone setup. The horror is intense and at times my heart was so much pounding that I would have died. The acting is top notch and the direction is superb. What adds to the intensity is the excellent background score ....

ABSOLUTE MUST FOR EVERY HORROR FAN !!