House
Keeping (2013/After Dark/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: D Film: C
Another
installment in the After Dark production roster, Jennifer
Harrington's House Keeping (2013) is another paranormal horror
film that is not completely original nor necessarily terrible. Not
unlike Jessabelle, The Skeleton Key, or The
Orphanage, a woman's dark past is revealed at an unusual location
and creepy things start to happen. This has become a sub-genre in
horror and plays out again here.
Lucy
Castillo (Adriana Solis), a young med student, has just given up a
prized summer internship to bail out her troubled younger brother,
Sal (Carlos Foglia) for the umpteenth time. He needs cash fast, and
after being unable to find a job, Lucy reluctantly accepts the
too-good-to-be-true position as a housekeeper offered to her through
a friend of a friend.
For
only three weeks work, she will be paid enough to get Sal out of
trouble. Things start to take a disturbing turn, however, as the job
reveals itself to be anything but normal. Her never-seen employer
seems to have a dark side, and Lucy's own haunted past begins to
reappear, tormenting her. As the job spirals out of control and
Sal's life hangs in the balance, Lucy's grip on reality disappears.
Sound
and Picture on the disc are standard for DVD with a anamorphic
widescreen presentation in 2.35 X 1 framing and a lossy Dolby Digital
Track. Surprisingly, we get no extras on the disc, which doesn't say
much for the After Dark series. There should be ongoing making of
documentaries to put under the label or something more than just
commercials for other releases.
-
James Harland Lockhart V
www.facebook.com/jhl5films
