House Of Voices
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C Film: B-
After another bizarre child in jeopardy pre-credit
sequence in which “bizarre things happen”, Pascal Laugier’s House of Voices
(2004) takes off into a more interesting direction as an adult visitor
(Virginia Ledoyen) turns up.
Unfortunately, the former orphanage is still haunted and what follows is
a twisted tales that will remind one of many haunted house stores before, plus
Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (reviewed elsewhere on this site) with its
themes of female anxiety.
The result is mixed, but there is a certain sense of
ambition that makes it worth at least a look.
The acting and casting is convincing and Laugier has some directing
talent. He also wrote the script and
makes the place just enough of a character to keep one watching. In the end, it is not totally successful,
but it is not bad and we have seen much worse in the genre lately. Especially with the overrated wave of Asian,
U.S. indie and bad Horror remakes, House of Voices at least tries to be
original.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in
Technovision and with Kodak stocks by cinematographer Pablo Rosso and has a
better look to it than so many films in the genre we have had to suffer through
lately. The darkness is not a spoof of
itself and it is not a bad use of the scope frame. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is the only soundtrack here and it is
dubbed English, which might disappoint some, though French captions are
available. The only extras are a behind
the scenes piece (about a half-hour) and a few deleted scenes that make little
difference to the resulting film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
