House at the End of the Street (2012) – ★½

Director: Mark Tonderai
Writers: David Loucka (screenplay), Jonathan Mostow (story)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Elisabeth Shue, Gil Bellows

Watching House at the End of the Street is about as satisfying as eating a dry chicken sandwich. It has the ingredients for a good film, but leaves you bitterly disappointed. It’s a little bit like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho,’ but with a far less interesting story. I enjoyed the slow pace of the film at first, but about 40 minutes in, it became unbearable. This is advertised as a ‘horror’ film, but it is NOT horrifying. It’s thrilling, and somewhat engaging, but in the end it just isn’t scary.


While watching the movie, the first though that came to mind was “What was Jennifer Lawrence thinking?” She has the world at her feet, so one would think she’d be more picky with her roles. No matter what, this film will always be a blotch on her resume. However, this isn’t a bad role for Max Thieriot, who played a disturbed young man and Lawrence’s love interest. He was quite good in the movie, but unfortunately he couldn’t save it.

The only scares in this film were when the ‘bad guy’ jumped out of the corner in a split second. These scares are not only unoriginal, but degrading to the audience. It may be satisfying for the average teenager, but any real horror lovers would be bored out of their minds.

When I say this movie had the ingredients to be good, I mean it. These are some good actors with a decent (and somewhat unoriginal) screenplay. It just didn’t pan out right. The fact that it could have been really good is what hurts it the most. If it weren’t for the glacial pace of the movie, or the sloppy and silly end product, it could have scraped 3 stars. Oh well…