Model House, an indie horror effort is an example of a film that has to be evaluated keeping in mind what it is than what the viewer wants it to be. After having seen the trailer, I would be lying if I said that I did not think this was going to be a senseless gore-soaked, laugh-out-loud foolishness with a plot so ridiculous that it only needed to be there for its own sake. This was not the case.
Instead, writer-director Derek Pike considers his somewhat unusual concept to be very reasonable, does not throw in a few easy laughs for the hell of it, and requires his five terrified characters to portray their roles in a realistic style, thereby raising the emotional stakes. The filmmaker wants to make a thriller that is more in the vein of Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers than Adam Wingard’s You’re Next–and it’s my fault for thinking otherwise going in.
Alternatively, this could have easily been a horror comedy. Or it could have been a bent sad-haired social commentary piece on the horrors of Modern Society. Five women, including Zoe (CoryAnne Roberts), who has been asked to step in as a last-minute replacement, are housed at a posh home in a posh area for a weekend swimwear catalogue photo shoot. . After a night of indulging in jokes and entertaining their followers on social networks, the girls are taken hostage by two masked men (Scout Taylor-Compton and Chris Zylka) who intrude the house’s premises.
It is envisioned that the pair of bad men will go through the women’s social media, pretending to be each of them, and plead their many followers to give money to a fictitious fund for a recently deceased top-model, whom zewd was meant to replace. Everything works out in the beginning–as you would expect in these cases–almost everybody dies. Because it wouldn’t be a slasher if everything worked out fine and no one dies. The home invaders proceed to remove their hoods and caps and then put them back, rendering the hostage models’ lives worth fighting for. It becomes clear far too quickly that at least one of the hostage takers is willing to kill all the other hostages if that is the only way to escape unscathed.
At first, Pike is rather cavalier about things, as it were. The first one to get of set is Zoe; more like a silly insecure girl who, on the first thing that ever mattered, strains her ankle while trying so hard to impress the people. She is within the confines of the house with a boot on, trying to rush while other ladies were filming themselves, photoshoots, and self-promoting thinking of possible future plans to make the relevance alive.
As for what I found interesting, Pike’s irony does not extend to these five women. Although they can be a bit frivolous, which is hardly surprising, they are still human. All of them do experience some deficiency of sorts. Everyone has their baggage. But while they do have some prickly fun with Zoe and her hairdo, they do not mock her. She is the last one to be seen, but definitely one of them, and in the same token, one who has put her back into growing within that particular industry. There is no doubt in Zoe earning their respect and support, and that is exactly why when older girls do decide to pull some innocent pranks or poke fun at the new girl for her not very high follower numbers, it surely is for a good laugh and nothing more sinister.
Nonetheless, despite all the playful vibes generated during the first third of the presentation, the tone definitely shifts when the invaders appear–but not immediately. For the most part, I like that Pike does not simply make his narrative a depressing abuse and slaughter repertoire the moment the pair manages to enter the building. Instead, he allows the story to evolve naturally, wherein the five models respond to their jeopardy in different and volitional emotional modes and their captors in the same manner when events begin unfolding in a different manner than intended.
When this particular change occurs, however, I have to say that I found it quite disconcerting. It is the [chaos] where things go [out of hand] for Taylor-Compton’s character. Taylor-Compton’s character is busy anticipating events to get out of hand. But her partner in crime, a befuddled person who can be called a less than average criminal, has had absolutely no such preparation. Zylka plays this guy to perfection he is completely out of his league. He allows himself to be lured into a scheme that will not turn out well, and instead of getting the millions, he will most likely be sitting in prison bruised and battered, covered with blood, wrapped with plastic foil and disposed together with five models.
That the film goes dark would be an understatement, And while it is a low blow Martyrs, Wolf Creek or Funny Games level of nasty it is close. This, however, is very different as Pike is rather relentless and as she cuts her way towards a certain death, it is so sudden and brutal that I found myself startled awake. Then I realized that I should begin to be touched by these women, not to mention all of them, and it is quite unsavory to think that two or three characters were slain so easily.
For this reason, the absurd, clever, and oh yes, perhaps even comic elements that are found in the final third, do not come off as effective. Pike does not have a sufficiently loose grip on the course of events to permit the cuts in dramatic tension at climactic moments to go without notice. All of this leads to a confrontation between Roberts and Taylor-Compton. Though this could be expected, it does still seem like one of those convenient script contradictions that the two of them manage to engage in a battle of wits. As good as the two actors are, the face-off that should have been climactic is very disappointglly weak, and I can only imagine that there were a number of sequences that Pike intended to include, numerous other sequences that were cut in order to ensure the run time was a quick 85 minutes.
Nevertheless, this thriller managed to do just enough to win me over. Even if I started on the wrong foot, I eventually cut Pike some slack since I was sufficiently curious about how the things were going to end up. There is potential with this filmmaker, and I respect him for not succumbing to the typical grindhouse conventions and instead, bringing forth a cold desire that is frightening. For those who are open to dark paths lined with blood letting, Model House walks across the horror runway with quite an unrelenting and arrogant air.
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