Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Ti West’s The House of the Devil remains one of the most memorable and effective horror films in recent memory. He employs a very deliberate pace to set the tone and to slowly build tension over the course of the film. On top of this pacing, he utilizes a very specific brand of voyeurism to bring the audience into the story.
Desperate for money, college student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) agrees to an unorthodox babysitting job in a remote farmhouse on the eve of a full lunar eclipse. As Samantha settles into her surroundings, she begins exploring the large house. As time goes on, she becomes more and more uneasy. The emptiness of the house feels almost claustrophobic and overwhelming, before it suddenly feels not empty at all. The shadows seem to harbor a presence and unseen eyes watch her from the darkest corners. Eventually, Samantha realizes that nothing about this job is as was promised and she is in the grips of a sinister plot orchestrated a group of very dangerous people.
The film is brilliantly effective in setting up a sense of dread and allowing it to grow slowly as the story progresses. Much of this suspense comes as Samantha slowly explores the house after the Ulmans depart. She travels from room to room, switching on lights, observing the state and decor of the room she enters and investigating anything that may be of interest, before turning the lights off again and moving along. Though she was invited into the house, the invitation did not necessarily extend to her having the run of the place, and thus, her actions carry a slight taboo. Should the Ulmans have returned suddenly, Samantha would no doubt have quickly returned to the living room, pretending to have been there the entire time.
The way in which West includes the audience as a subtle participant in the proceedings is particularly interesting. The House of the Devil carries with it a voyeuristic angle not commonly seen in most horror films. Through the way we see Samantha and the way we watch her observe and interact with the house, the film invites us slightly past a “fly on the wall” status and allows us to be present in the moment. We are exploring the house with her as invisible companions. We are just as curious as she is to find out what lies beyond each door and how her strange employers spend their days, and though we get a sense of fear from the idea that she might get caught (or discover something untold), we also get a bit of a thrill in watching her.
There is a second layer to the illicit observation presented in this film, and that is the audience’s own voyeurism of Samantha’s voyeuristic act. Though we are on this journey with her, we are separated from her. Much like watching Norman Bates peering through his peephole, we are witness to Samantha’s explorations.
In these moments, there exists a physical distance between us and Samantha. We never venture too close, and most of this sequence is filmed at a medium distance, allowing us to see most of Samantha’s figure framed in every shot. The camera maintains a very distinct separation; we aren’t physically with her as much as we are watching her. West incorporates several shots where the camera, already positioned inside of a room, observes Samantha entering that space, rather than following along behind her. We see her in the doorway as she approaches. She turns on a light, looks around briefly, and exits. We see her movements as if we were simply part of the furniture and she has invaded the space that we already occupied. Similarly, she can be seen through several exterior windows. Samantha will pull a curtain aside and we observe her through the glass, as if we were looking in from across the street. We silently watch her movements as she takes a voyeuristic trip around the quiet farmhouse.
This storytelling approach is fascinating because it makes the audience very much a part of the proceedings, but adds in an extra layer of tension by separating us slightly from our protagonist. It makes everything feel slightly unsafe. We feel that Samantha is not alone in the house and is being constantly observed by unseen eyes because WE are the unseen eyes. Inasmuch as the Ulmans are close by and are waiting for the right time to strike, we are silently observing Samantha’s every move.
We become increasingly fearful for her as the film goes on, in part because West has kept us at arm’s length the entire time. We know that she has entered dangerous territory, and though we can’t predict her exact fate, we feel helpless to stop it.
The House of the Devil is a masterful film for a number of different reasons, but the layered voyeurism at play is one of the ways it really stands apart from other horror films. Some have complained that the film is slow, but it is this measured approach that really allows the tension to sink in. By making the audience both complicit in and separate from Samantha’s actions while inside the house, West asks us to take a unique place in both the story and in the way we process it.
