From the brief synopsis of the Jeffery Scott Lando (Roboshark, Savage Island) directed House of Bones I assumed it was going to be a found footage movie. Well, it turns out it isn't, instead this is a haunted house film that throws everything but the kitchen sink at the viewer in order to scare them. The plot is almost nonsensical, the editing often confusing, yet at least there is a variety to be found.
The crew and cast of a TV ghost hunting show arrive at a plantation home that has been the site of plenty of mysterious deaths over the years. With the show's ratings falling it is hoped that this one will reverse their fortunes. Included among the group are a cameraman, investigator Greg (Marcus Lyle Brown - Battleship), producer Tom (Ricky Wayne - Real Steel), as well as a psychic, Heather (Charisma Carpenter - Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It isn't long when things start going wrong, one of the crew members vanishes into thin air, an ectoplasm type substance is discovered within the walls, and all the exits won't open. The hunters come to realise that they have fallen prey to the house itself, and that it does not want them to leave.
This is a pretty dumb movie that becomes a victim to some of the tropes it parodies. It begins in a good way, after a brief prologue set in the 1950s we then get the super (purposely) cheesy intro credits to the show within the film. This is one element that causes a disconnect, House of Bones never seems to know if it wants to be a scary film or a funny one. This can be seen with an entire comedy side plot going on with one of the presenters begrudgingly travelling to the house, played entirely for laughs. This then feels weird when we go back to the house where an attempt at proper horror is going on. The editing throughout was off, the many techniques used to flip between scenes, as well as the bombastic music made it feel like I was watching one of those actual ghost hunting shows.
At least a lot happens here. There are all sorts of horror on display here, it occasionally felt like a ghost train with the amount of variation. From haunted TV sets, to floating orbs, traditional ghosts, booby traps, physical ghosts, possession and insect swarms it was all quite unrelenting. It's a shame then that the plot was so dull, I found myself getting increasingly tired with the plot itself seeming to just go around and around in circles for the majority of the run time. A lot of the effects were physical ones, these were enjoyable, utilising some bloody makeup effects. The CG didn't look as good, especially a skull faced smoke monster which looked very artificial. There are a fair few death scenes, each one different in its own way, these were perhaps the highlight. My favourite is a toss-up between a character who gets a shard of glass embedded in their mouth (a last shot of the corpse with a trickle of blood coming out the mouth at the same time a tear rolls out of the eye was decent looking), and a character who gets supernaturally impaled while trying to climb over some metal railings.
For all the different goings on here it felt like House of Bones should have been more entertaining than it was. Due to some odd editing and a plot that was very underdeveloped this felt like it outstayed its welcome. Still, it was nice to see Carpenter at the very least, so wasn't all bad.
SCORE:
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