We are under Z because of star of the movie Zino Ventura.
Writer: Jonathan Jordaan, Alastair Orr (Screenplay) Catherine Blackman (Story)
Starring: Sharni Vinson, Carlyn Burchell, Steven John Ward, Gustav Gerdener, Zinoe Venture, Gina Shmukler
Plot: After a young woman is kidnapped, her captors soon come to realize that in fact they may be the ones in danger and this young woman has a dark secret inside her.
Tagline – Evil has an address.
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Fresh Action Horror
Story: House on Willow Street starts when a group of criminals, Hazel (Vinson), Ade (Ward), Mark (Ventura) and James (Gerdener) look to target a house for a diamond robbery, they kidnap the daughter Katherine (Burchell) who promises bad things will happen to the criminals if they don’t let her go.
As the night continues, the criminals each get haunted by something from their past, where they slowly learn the truth about the house and just what will happen if they don’t fix the problem they have created.
Thoughts on House on Willow Street
Characters – Hazel is one of the criminals, she has chosen to make this latest job personal leading her team into a house which she knows more than she lets on about, she is damaged, like all the criminals in this film, taking charge when she learns more about the truth about the person they kidnap. Katherine is the young woman who gets kidnapped, she promises to make them pay, showing the truth about what has happened to her in the most twisted way possible. Ade is looking for this job to be his chance to escape certain life in prison, he becomes the most desperate to get out with the diamonds, even though he will stay loyal till the end. Mark is the leader of the gang, he lets others do the work, only to show his true nature when things become too tough.
Performances – Sharni Vinson in the leading role does well as the broken criminal who wants to clean up her own life, while the rest of the cast fill the generic roles with ease never being tested to be more than this.
Story – The story here follows a group of criminals that kidnap the daughter of a family in hope of getting diamonds, only for the person they kidnap to have a much darker secret about them which will put them all in a fight to survive. While on paper this looks like it will be a run of the mill crime story, the twist it takes going into the new direction shows us a horror story about fighting demons. It is different it does work for the film, though it does seem like it goes too far into making a point that the possessed person if evil with no cure, rather than an innocent person in need of rescuing.
Action/Horror – The action in the film comes from seeing how the team operate to get the kidnapping happening in the first place and then how they must deal with the horror, with the horror being around possession, which for once seems to focus on the idea of not having a fix, where the evil has already won the body who is now looking for more souls.
Settings – The film uses an abandoned warehouse as the main setting, this does work because criminals would take a hostage there and it only adds to the horror of being along in this location.
Special Effects – The effects in this film are used well, they do know how to make everything effective when it comes to seeing the possessed dealing with their hunt.
Scene of the Movie – The final battle.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Mark and Ade seems to have a character swap which isn’t implied in their early nature.
Final Thoughts – This is a nice spin on the kidnapping genre, it enjoys adding the possession horror to this, keeping it fresh with the battles and motivation behind the characters.
Overall: Nice Spin.
