Housebound
New Zealand 2014
Written by Gerard Johnstone
Directed by Gerard Johnstone

THAT’S how you make a great horror comedy! “Housebound” is a highly entertaining flick, that perfectly (and frequently) shifts between very funny and truly scary. It has a very good plot, with lots of nice twists and turns, that keeps you guessing where it all may ultimately lead, and at least I wouldn’t have predicted the final couple of revelations. I especially loved the explanation concerning the “ghost”. It may not be very original or even plausible, but there are so many movies that when offering a possible supernatural and a potential down-to-earth explanation [SPOILER!] go with the former [/SPOILER] that I found it refreshing when “Housebound”, to my complete surprise, went in the other direction.

The movie does a very good job to make us sympathize with its lead character, the titular housebound Kylie Bucknell, who gets an ankle monitor after a cash dispenser-bust goes horribly wrong – which obviously is a great plot device for a “haunted house”-movie, since it offers a neat answer to that often-nagging question “Why don’t they simply go somewhere else?”. Kylie isn’t always nice, and neither Gerard Johnstone nor Morgana O’Reilly shy away from risking that the audience may lose patience with her from time to time, but I do believe that this pays off very nicely afterwards, because all of her flaws make her look like a real character, and not one of those dull clichè-ridden potential victims that we get shoved down our throaths in too many other horror movies.

Morgana O’Reilly is stunning the lead, and gives a varied, multi-layered performance. The script is great too, and not just because of the way the story unfolds. It also offers many great dialoges and some very funny scenes. Despite the humor, when “Housebound” gets scary, it gets really scary. The movie offers some tense scenes that had me on the edge of my seat. And where some other horror movies drop the ball when it comes to the last act, “Housebound” delivers in that regard too, with a gripping showdown and an awesome final kill. There are only two things that prevent me from rating it even higher: Some scenes (like the one with her step dad) and revelations (f.e. when it comes to the neighbour) were a little predictable, and with 110 minutes, it might be a tad too long for its own good. Other than that, I had a great time, and hope that you will too.
8/10

IMDB