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HOUSEBOUND
Produced by Ron Bonk and Tim Ritter
Written and Directed by John Bowker
Director ph Photography - Joe SherlockHeidi - Kylene Wetherell
Nancy - Erin Arbogast
Terry - Alan WinstonWith HOUSEBOUND, John Bowker delivers another character-driven horror effort that proves he's at the forefront of horror's next generation of filmmakers. He knows that without sympathetic, three-dimensional characters, a movie on the micro-budget scale will ultimately fail on ever level. While HOUSEBOUND is far from John's best work, he shows an understanding of depth of character that other, lesser moviemakers can only dream about.
John is probably best known for his EVILMAKER series, dark tales of supernatural horror. With HOUSEBOUND, John leaves the ghosts and ghouls behind and puts his spin on the world of science fiction. As HOUSEBOUND unfolded, I kept thinking to myself how much John's style reminded me of Don Dohler, a filmmaker John admits to having a deep affection for. They both have a light touch, never focusing on the gore or alienating their core audience with simple shock value. It helps keep their movies fun and entertaining.
HOUSEBOUND follows Heidi and Erin, two sisters living in the Pacific Northwest. Heidi suffers from agoraphobia and won't leave the house under any circumstances lest she pass out from fright. Nancy is a teenager with a nasty chip on her shoulder the size of Oregon. Without any other family, the two try to make do the best they can but more often then not the two find themselves butting heads. How can Nancy grow and blossom when she's grounded to the house with Heidi? How can Heidi find any sense of self-worth with a sister who can't find anything positive to say.
HOUSEBOUND is how the two sisters come to terms with each other. The rat-like critter that makes their Christmas a living hell is incidental. It's the catalyst that brings the girl's conflict out into the open. Granted, the little bugger has to kill a few people to get those issues out there, but for the most part the little guy does an upstanding job.
Compared to the EVILMAKER series, there's a lot less movie here. With all the action confined to the Heidi's house, Bowker runs of out situations to put the girls through. While this does make for a briskly paced feature, something about the overall production feels underdeveloped. Even while Bowker establishes a firm character base, he never uses it to build any tension or scares. Neither does Bowker explore the concepts or ideas that the creature could possibly represent. The beasty is treated as little more than a Facehugger from ALIEN.
HOUSEBOUND is far from perfect and falls short of John Bowker's other cinematic endevours, but the movie still manages to maintain elements that fans of micro-cinema should take note of, first and foremost being the importance of character. Bowker could have produced a truly great example of micro-cinema had he given his characters more to do, and as it stands he has to settle for a movie that only "above average", which still better than 95% of what everyone else is striving for.