leominosa

There are some decent ideas in this film, which makes it more of a shame that it's not very good.

A straight-forward set-up is established in which a team of young paranormal investigators arrive at the somewhat original setting of a large, reputedly haunted, Californian wine-making estate with a history of bizarre suicides, in order to record footage for a TV show that they hope will win them a network contract.

Sure enough they get more than they bargained for and find themselves in grave peril, but it turns out that there's more going on than a few malevolent spirits bumping off twenty-somethings in imaginative fashion. In fact there's both a nefarious threat very much of the earthly plane, and otherworldly forces that give the plot an unexpected dimension, at least genre-wise. There are other plot strands at play relating to these; probably too many in fact, and certainly too many to mention. Incredibly, despite all of this the film still feels predictable.

The group of six paranormal investigators form three couples of sorts (one ostensibly a pair of childhood friends) who have varying relationship "issues". This is made explicit in an interwoven scene in which all three couples are bickering at once. Are they being influenced by sinister forces, inadvertently provoking said forces, or neither? I'm still not sure. This element, along with the general tone of the film, seems to be aimed squarely at a multiplex teen audience.

That said, at times it feels as if the filmmakers are having fun with genre clichés, and might even have originally intended to set this up as a standard teen ghost flick in order to wow us with the aforementioned genre switch-up, but overall the tone remains cheesy and earnest throughout.

Some will enjoy this as it has more going on than the average mainstream ghost story, but overall the familiar teen-horror tropes form an uneasy combination with the ambitious, and at times daft, plot.

Delinquent serial-offender Kylie is sentenced to nine month's house arrest at her family home in a small town on New Zealand's Twin Coast Highway, forcing her to move back in after many years with her slightly loopy mother, who we learn has long been convinced that the house is haunted. Initially more than a little sceptical, Kylie soon begins to experience unexplained phenomena herself, and before long local security contractor/probation officer Amos (who is principally responsible for ensuring Kylie doesn't leave the premises) offers his services as an amateur paranormal investigator.

Part ghost story, part murder mystery, it would be counter- productive to know any more about the plot before viewing, as various revelations and red herrings keep the mystery quotient high. There are also underlying themes relating to family and loss that lend the film a welcome human dimension.

One slight negative is that the many twists and turns stretch out the runtime beyond the ideal for this sort of film, and there are times when it starts to drag. Also one particular character is presented in a manner that pushes the film firmly into farce territory; one of a couple of aspects that could have been executed slightly more believably, as absurd as that sounds in relation to a film of this type.

The performances are all top notch; Morgana O'Reilly has great fun with Kylie's mardy persona, Glen-Paul Waru is perfect as likable doofus Amos and Rima Te Wiata excels as Kylie's dotty but ultimately caring mother. Refreshingly, the main characters all develop convincingly over the course of the film, which is far from a given when it comes to horrors, comedies and indeed horror-comedies. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted not to care about them by the end.

Horror-comedies are difficult to pull off, and it's rare that a film strikes a genuine balance without ending up as a full-on horror with a darkly comic edge, or an out-and-out comedy with horror themes, but Housebound gets very close to doing so. At time it leans more towards comedy and farce, and the tone is often light-hearted, but there are enough moments of tension – and violence – to ensure that there are plenty of thrills among the laughs.

Here's your set-up: preposterously well-educated and pretty Lara Croft-ish young British woman, motivated by her dead Dad, is on the hunt for the apparent Holy Grail of archaeology (no not the Holy Grail, the Philosopher's Stone, which I always thought was supposed to be an elusive substance rather than an actual physical stone, but she seems to have new information). Luckily for us, and the executive producers, a guy happens to be filming her quest for a documentary. She ends up in Paris for reasons that were probably explained and hooks up with an old acquaintance; a not unattractive American who spends his time fixing old church bells without permission (!). Clues are followed that eventually take them into the Parisian catacombs with a trio of locals who were persuaded to help with the promise of "treasure". Really.

As with many mainstream, commercial horrors I was cringing myself inside out within a few minutes of the film starting. Some parts are offensively stupid. For instance, somebody translates some text from Aramaic out loud, and lo and behold it translates into perfect rhyming couplets in modern English.

Nevertheless it's a relatively fun premise, and of course once they get into the catacombs and things get a bit supernatural, implausibility becomes a valid element of the plot and it's pretty much a ghost train of a ride from thereon. The underground setting is actually quite dull, but a blandly entertaining mix of claustrophobia, mystery and mythology keeps things interesting in the quieter moments between the scares and deaths, even if it's a load of nonsense. There's not much more to it than that.

I have complaints about the way the "found footage" format is employed, but the problems are so common and inherent that they should just be taken for granted.

Ultimately this film hasn't been made for the type of horror fan that loves the genre, it's for people who like going to the cinema and occasionally watching a relatively scary film. If the latter is your thing and you're easily pleased then you may enjoy it (some of the people in the screening I was in apparently did), otherwise steer clear.