House of Darkness, directed by Neil LaBute, is a comedy-horror film that suffers from a weak screenplay, is predictable and takes too long to get to the point.
The film begins with Hap (Justin Long) offering Mina (Kate Bosworth) a ride home after meeting at a bar. Her place is like a medieval-era castle outside the city, in the middle of nowhere. Mina invites him into her home, where they gossip about their lives and flirt. Hap constantly senses someone else’s presence in the house. While she walks to the other room to make drinks, Hap receives a call from an office friend in which he brags about the possibility of getting laid and promises to tell him everything in detail the next day. The flirting and conversation between Hap and Mina continue, and as they begin to make out, Mina’s sister Lucy (Gia Crovatin) appears, and the film takes a strange turn where things don’t necessarily pan out the way Hap had expected.
The film gets off to an intriguing start, and the conversations between them are engaging, thanks to Neil LaBute’s sharp and intelligent dialogue. He is well-aware of how smug, misogynistic men operate, which reflects in his writing and Hap’s characterization. On the other hand, Mina is this beautiful, mysterious woman who counters his every ploy and regularly puts him on the spot, leaving him at a loss for words and forcing him to go on the defensive. Furthermore, the big castle with no electricity and only candlelight contributes to the eerie mood, making the spectators suspect that not everything is as it appears. But LeBute extends this battle of sexes for too long, which overstays its welcome, due to which the flirting turns into a drag, eventually feeling like a forcefully injected dialogue. After establishing through Mina’s actions that she is up to something, the screenplay should have advanced swiftly; instead, it continues to tread the same ground with them conversing and flirting, losing the audience’s attention in the process.
By the time the third act begins, it becomes obvious who the sisters are and what they want. They tell him a story explaining why they’re doing what they’re doing, which was ludicrous and a massive letdown (I don’t know why they needed a third sister in the mix, as she was completely unnecessary). Hap is a man who wants nothing from women but casual hookups. He treats them like numbers and likes keeping scores of the women he’s slept with. He is such a pervert that he even starts flirting with Lucy, hoping to have a ménage à trois with the sisters. But to fit this story, Hap needed to be a bigger asshole than he is presented, with some baggage and an unsavory history with women.
In terms of acting, Justin Long gives a mixed performance as Hap. His character felt like a continuation of the one he played in Zach Cregger’s Barbarian (2022), which came out the same year. Initially, he is good when he is a dorky flirt, but towards the end of the film, he becomes overly awkward, which doesn’t work, and his performance falls flat. Kate Bosworth, who I believed had plenty to offer as an actor if her character had been written with more finesse. Although LeBute’s goal in writing House of Darkness was to shed light on male toxicity, he barely scratches the surface. The film suffers from an overly long first half, unoriginality, and a subpar payoff towards the end.
House of Darkness (2022) movie links: IMDB, Wikipedia
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