The House of the Devil

Genre horror director Ti West is a scary-movie veteran with four features to his credit and he's still not out of his 20s. His latest is an 80s-style shocker which promises much at first – particularly with a pastiche-grindhouse credit sequence that Tarantino himself might admire. But things quickly get silly and unscary. Newcomer Jocelin Donahue plays a hard-up college student who takes a babysitting job at a spooky old house for this weirdo rich guy, played by Tom Noonan. It's only once she's arrived, that this man confesses it isn't a child she has to watch over, but his elderly mother. She, he blandly assures her, will be no trouble at all. Inevitably, the eerie atmosphere of the deserted house is far creepier than the subsequent grossout action.