'House of Darkness' sits a long way from Neil LaBute's best
For many years, the name Neil LaBute (the extraordinary trio of “In the Company of Men,” “Your Friends and Neighbors,” “The Shape of Things”) sparked automatic interest from me. I still can’t believe he made the hilarious “The Wicker Man” and shockingly unfunny “Death at a Funeral.” It actually hasn’t been that long, though (2013’s “Some Velvet Morning”), since the writer/director/playwright has delivered a fascinating dissection of the power play between consenting adults.
Sadly, “House of Darkness” (following 2015’s disappointing “Dirty Weekend”) is a screen saver posing as a movie, with a dead-end plot merely killing time before, um, killing time. It gives away nothing (hello, ominous title) to say that it’s obvious quite early that Mina (Kate Bosworth) has something more complex and probably more painful in mind for Hap (Justin Long) than a no-strings-attached hookup when he drives her home to an isolated estate with faulty electricity. The good news is that Bosworth is exceptional in a role requiring her to be both enticing and just-spooky-enough; the bad news is the script doesn’t have any novel points to make about dating in a Me Too world, following the likewise misguided “Promising Young Woman” in approaching an important issue without the ability to inform the discussion.
Plus, Long was so much better in a very similar role in “Barbarian,” which also had narrative issues but almost got by on direction. You’ll wait and wait and wait for the 85-minute “House of Darkness” to get to its payoff, and then very much wish you hadn’t bothered.
C-
ORDER “TALK ‘90S WITH ME: 23 UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSATIONS WITH STARS OF AN UNFORGETTABLE DECADE”
Matt’s new book arrived Sept. 27, 2022, and Richard Roeper raves: “Matt Pais deserves four stars for reintroducing us to many of the greatly talented but often unsung heroes of 1990s film. This is a terrific read.”
ARE YOU A “SAVED BY THE BELL” FAN?
Order “Zack Morris Lied 329 Times! Reassessing every ridiculous episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’ … with stats” (featuring interviews with 22 cast members, plus the co-founder of Saved by the Max and the creator of “Zack Morris is Trash”)
GET 100 STORIES FOR JUST $4.99