Critic Reviews
73
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
17(94%)
mixed
1(6%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 18 Critic Reviews
88
It is a fine little old-school thriller.
83
There's wit but never a wink in this smartly shot production, which pays homage to the 1980s without fetishizing the era.
83
If nothing else, Ti West’s retro “Satan rules!” thriller The House Of The Devil gets the look and tone of early-’80s horror schlock exactly right.
80
West is far more adept at and interested in sustaining an unrelentingly ominous mood than in executing the genre-required spook shocks.
80
The buildup is undeniably effective; for most of the movie, it provides the same kind of thrills as "Paranormal Activity," if somewhat less brilliantly.
80
A clever picture, and something of a novelty -- it's not going to change the face or direction of horror filmmaking in any drastic way. But it's fun to watch something that's so obviously made with love.
80
Mr. West shows a real gift for the genre, particularly in his ability to generate dread with pinpricks rather than bludgeoning shocks, something even veterans twice his age have difficulty achieving. After years of vivisectionist splatter, here is a horror movie with real shivers.
75
The film may provide an introduction for some audience members to the Hitchcockian definition of suspense: It's the anticipation, not the happening, that's the fun.
75
This isn't just a good throwback satanic thriller - it looks as if it was made during the era of satanist paranoia.
75
An almost fetishistic re-creation of a horror-suspense movie from around 1978.
