Horst_In_Translation Review of The House

The House (2016)

Norwegian/German horror should not want to be defined by films like this one

[4/10 · 19 April 2017]

"Huset" or "House - Willkommen in der Hölle" or just "The House" is a Norwegian production from 2016, but don't be fooled by this fact and by the original title because the fact that this is the story of Nazi soldiers during World War II makes this a movie that is almost exclusively in the German language. It runs for slightly under 1.5 hours and is the most recent effort by writer and director Reinert Kiil. I believe it is the first film I have seen by him and I must say I am not impressed at all. First of all, the historic context adds absolutely nothing to this film at all. It is just there. There is no reason to watch this movie if you like films about this era because there is no elaboration on it at all basically, apart from the uniforms perhaps. So I am saying that this film could have played at any other point in history as well pretty much. if there is any reason to appreciate this film, then it is from the thriller/horror perspective, but actually really only from the latter as this is just not a good thriller movie at all. I myself like subtle horror films about unseen dangers, so this one is in theory also not to my liking and the same goes for practice. But this is really just subjective. The music felt overly loud at times and it seemed almost a bit desperate by the makers as they were clearly trying to hide the lack of substance here. There are many jump scares, but hardly any of them are really working. I find it a bit shocking to see a film with such low quality made by Kiil, who is a filmmaker who actually has a solid deal of experience and should know better than to release really weak outcomes like this one. Maybe he did not choose the right profession. Anyway, maybe I am doing him injustice and his other works are better. If not, then I hope he can step things up soon as he is still relatively young. All in all 4 stars out of 10 (or 2 stars out of 5 actually) is still very much on the generous side for this one. Do not watch unless you really love the horror film genre and have seen almost everything else.