2 gibbles out of 5

Director: Pascal Laugier

Aw man producer Christopher Gans and director Pascal Laugier, why’d you have to do this to me?  Didn’t I respect your Silent Hill?  Didn’t I want to marry your Martyrs?  Now true – the production on this is still pretty beautiful, and actually looks, in moments, more like Silent Hill than Silent Hill did, and yes, this was before Martyrs, and Laugier grew from the experience from film to film, but, well.  Shucks.  I just wanted this to be a gem and instead it’s a wandering, voiceless affair that’s not spooky or interesting enough to merit attentiveness.

So, as a lot of spooky films like to do, House of Voices opens with an intro scene that’s intended to give us a glimpse of the spooks to come.  Often these intros are not spooky, and feature predictable slow camera movements to a jump scare which then cues credits.  “House of Voices” doesn’t buck this trend, and starts well with a gorgeous orphanage set, an old creaky bathroom, and some innocent lookin’ younguns.  That these youngsters are French but speaking English (in the version I watched*) sort of makes you wince, and when the inevitable “shock” happens, its so unghosty that you wonder if you’re in for some non-scary disappointment.

Let me interrupt this to make something clear: This movie looks gorgeous.  Every set feels carefully considered, and the camera moves with grace around its characters.  It’s interesting as a comparison to Martyrs because structurally there’s a ton of similarity, and so its fascinating to see a theme worked in similar but different methods, both strong executions technically, but this one much more open and wandering (and oddly grounded) than the frightening – both from a horror and psychological perspective – Martyrs.

But looks aren’t everything.  While Laugier may have purposefully constructed this as a non-movie, where a plot doesn’t so much happen as characters wander through sets and elements, it’s simply not very compelling.  The story lurking under the surface could be nudged into more effective directions, but it just doesn’t happen.  Non-movies are a tricky thing to pull off, and “House of Voices’ faces that much more difficulty for using horror elements – that spooky intro, the haunting score, the attempted jump scares – and if Laugier really wanted to just let the film stand on its own, he could’ve left these techniques behind in letting the mood work for itself.

Take your concept from Martyrs and boil it down to something even more primal.  Dress it up with some excellent production and now wash it all in unfortunate horror stereotypes that don’t do the story justice.  Laugier’s next work will show if he’s truly learning from his experiences or just gave in to the horror bug as a better vehicle for the plot in his confused art film House of Voices.

*Instead of a dubbed version, apparently this was shot in French and then with the French actors speaking in English.  The DVD has both versions, but if you’re streaming it, like me, you’re getting the English one, which doesn’t help the mood.

"Over here we were going to have something scary happen, but don't worry about it."