Editorials
Exploring the Voyeurism in Ti West’s ‘The House of the Devil’
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.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
You must be logged in to post a comment.