Nigel P This anthology film starts in a refreshing manner. A standard family emerge from their home in sunny suburbia to have dinner at a neighbours'. Whereas often the family would be swapping cutesy witticisms with each other, this one is arguing and cursing before their own front door is shut behind them. As it turns out, this family returns to feature in the last of this trio of tales involving various bloody misdeeds that have occurred in the basement of this house over the years.Of the three stories, the first is an enjoyably perverse, open-ended piece in which hints are given about possible unsavoury relations between four family members involved in a séance.The second is my favourite, and features a gleefully animalistic character who keeps his 'guests' in two cages. One, he abuses regularly but keeps alive – she is his 'audience'. The second cage is used far more regularly, as the unfortunates he brings to that one don't live for very long after he begins to systematically torture them in various graphic ways. The relationship takes on an almost humorous familiarity before it, too, ends with no real sense of closure.And to the third story, which deals with the original family being tortured also, in various horrifying ways – perhaps the worst is the daughter of the house stabbed multiple times and then thrown into a bath of lemon juice. Without any real narrative, however, this emerges simply as scenes of torture for the sake of it.There's no real conclusion to the overall story either, which is disappointing, other than now, in the present day, someone has actually brought the property, and already there is a body in the basement … This is an odd experience. At turns gratuitous, funny, but ultimately fairly plot less.

lazarillo This an anthology horror film about a sexy female realtor (Monique Parent, who appeared in countless softcore porn films in the 90's) showing a young couple house where all kinds of horrible things have happened. It's basically the same plot as Hammer's "The House that Dripped Blood" (and the John Ritter TV movie "Terror Tract"). The first story is the best. It's about a very messed-up family--the mother is mentally ill and off her meds, the father may be sleeping with the daughter, and the son has become murderously resentful. It all blows up when they're forced to seek shelter down in the basement during a storm (with a whole lot of knives). I've noticed that when they treat the subject of incest in movies, they're often so circumspect about it that they ironically don't make it nearly as ugly as it would be in real life. It also may be a little hypocritical here because they prominently display this alleged teen incest victim in her underwear (although I seriously doubt the actress is really young a teen). On the other hand, I did appreciate that the subject is treated with some ambiguity and subtlety because NOTHING ELSE in this movie is.I hate to describe the last two stories as sheer "torture porn" because I really don't like that term. Most people watch horror and porn for completely different reason. Still, the second story is pretty much just unrelenting sadism about a serial killer who tortures and murders victims of both sexes in his basement and has kept one woman alive to periodically sexually assault, but mostly watch him kill the others. This is hard to take very seriously because the acting isn't very believable and there's zero character development, but it did make me question why I was watching this in the first place. When torture goes on long enough, it isn't really "horror" anymore; the term "porn" is not really accurate because only a very disturbed person is going to get turned on by this, but there is something unpleasant and definitely not very fun about it.The third story, unfortunately, is more of the same except the victims are a whole family (with yet another teenage girl stripped to her underwear) being victimized by their crazy older neighbor. This segment has the only "name" actor in Felissa Rose, who played the transgendered killer in "Sleepaway Camp". I think anybody with a family will find this really hard to watch, and the ending is definitely harder to take than the second. But there is SOME black humor here because the neighbor is set off when the father forgets to return his weed-whacker! Still, it's less funny when he sets on the teen daughter for being scantily clad and promiscuous. I don't know what he has against the younger children. The movie shatters some cinematic taboos here, but it really does it just to do it.Overall though, I wouldn't describe this movie as offensive, and it certainly does succeed at being pretty grueling. But it is also pretty puerile, definitely pointless (any point it has usually ends up shoved in someone's eye), and just not a lot of fun.

Drew Grimm Van Ess Coming to DVD July 22nd, The Perfect House starts with Mike (William A. Robertson) and Marisol (Andrea Vahl) being shown around a really nice and big house house by a seductive real estate agent. It's obviously too good to be true, and they're being lied to and schemed into possibly buying it. There's no mention of the house's past, but the movie is constructed with long, detailed flashbacks of the previous owners and the owners before them, who were all driven mad by the so-called "dream home". The first flashback is called "The Storm", and it's about a family of four hiding out in the basement in hopes of surviving a terrible storm raging outside. While together in a closed space, we see how nasty the matriarch of the family is, always saying rude and hurtful things. The father however, is the calm one who is supportive of the kids, and they all acknowledge that something is wrong with their mom. Of course, we as the viewers know that she's possessed, and that explains the weird behavior. And, lets just say things get out of hand and go in a direction that I didn't see coming, and the result is a rather large amount of blood spilled.Then, after a few moments of seeing Mike and Marisol's walk-through, we get another flash from the past. In "Chic-Ken" we watch John Doesy (Jonathan Tiersten), as he cages humans up in the basement and murders/mutilates them. His recent capture is a young man who is way too whiny and complains too much. So much in fact that I actually was hoping for his on screen death (laugh). In the cage beside him is a young woman who has been caged up for the better part of five years, and she hates and envies anyone John kills who isn't her because she'd rather be dead than live like an animal in the cage any longer. Like the previous story, when things come to a conclusion, it's very bloody. This is definitely the most graphic of the three stories told, as we see things like eyelids being cut off."Dinner Guest" is a wraparound story. The flashback scene starts the movie off, before we see Mike and Marisol touring the house, but it doesn't conclude until the final act. We see a psychopath take a family apart, the mother (Felissa Rose) is tied up as she's forced to witness terrible things, like her children being murdered. This also ends in a very gory fashion, and as the film comes to an end, we're left with knowing what Mike and Marisol have to look forward to by buying the house. There's not a lot of character development, so not getting to know the characters intimately stings a bit, but this is a feature that's more focused on the macabre aspects, so it's semi-excusable. The acting suffers at times throughout from all stories including Mike and Marisol's walk-through. But, Sleepaway Camp star, Felissa Rose puts on her best performance to date. And the makeup FX are decent, but far from great. You can see it's clearly a low-budget flick, but as a whole, it works. There's always room for improvement, and The Perfect House is no exception, but it's an entertaining movie.

ms_sdak First off, I am NOT a fan of torture movies. Ones like Saw, Hostel and especially Seven. However, unlike those movies, this one actually didn't bother me (Seven bothered me for weeks). I think the reason is the other ones had seriously disturbed individuals who got off on torture. THAT bothers me. I don't want to watch a sicko consciously torturing people. That's a little too real life for me.That said, the reason this movie stands out is because it's the lingering evil in the house which infects the characters. As other reviewers have said, there are flashbacks that tells the history of the house and each one as gruesome as the next. I particularly liked the one which has the girl locked in the cage, mostly because she brilliantly escapes.The only qualms I had was the Realtor and the doofus at the end. Ugh. Way over the top. Oh yes, and the weed eater. Having actually used one, the plastic cord would have already dissipated. Unless it was made of wire. Then nevermind.If you like a little gore - okay a LOT of gore - in your horror movie, this should fulfill your appetite.