Film Review: House of 9

"Hopper was always going to win the
'Sean Connery look alike contest' against Kelly Brook"

House of Nine
Dir. Steven Monroe

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Day four in the Big Brother house… Kelly Brook has been electrocuted and she hadn’t even had chance to strip off. Several people have died, shooting, stabbing and bludgeoning have occurred but more concerning still, Dennis Hopper is hamming it up like a staving mad man let loose on an ‘all you can eat bacon buffet’…
Who goes… you don’t decide, but you do get to watch as 9 strangers are abducted off the street and trapped in a house (see where they got the cunning title now eh?) – and offered $5million to the sole survivor – once they’ve killed the rest…
Hardly a new concept but still a fairly amusing way to pass the time – HO9 owes it’s existence to films like Cube, Saw and My Little Eye. This British effort bills itself as “The ultimate test of human character” – they might be referring to having the endurance to watch all 86 mins without laughing at the clichéd characters but I think the makers had loftier ambitions.

Here’s a quick character synopsis by the good people over at www.beyondhollywood.com
“The characters are inevitably familiar archetypes: the Hardnosed Cop (Raffaello Degruttola), who besides being left with the only gun in the house, also sports cinema's most unsightly mustache; the Angry Black Guy (Ashley Walters), who was on the verge of a record deal when he got snatched, and who opens up the proceedings by informing everyone how much he hates cops, white folk, and especially "white bitches" (a phrase he uses often); the feuding married couple, of which the husband half is a controlling jerk; the stuffy clothing designer (Peter Capaldi); the mousy dancer (Kelly Brook); the Spoiled Rich Bitch (Susie Amy); Dennis Hopper as an Irish (I think) priest; and finally, the British equivalent of White Trailer Trash (Morven Christie)… The Angry Black Guy is very angry; the Controlling Cop is very controlling; the Passive Girl is very passive; and the Rich Spoiled Bitch is -- well, you get the idea.”
One thing that did annoy me was that the house might be rigged so as to be impossible to escape from and have 75 cameras recording every grisly move made by the inhabitants but boy does their image quality suck… If you were the type to invest masses of cash in adducting people, decking out a killzone house and offering $5million to the winner – you could probably have afforded cameras that offer a decent resolution? I know I would. When the director switches to the ‘sick game controller’s’ point of view you can barely tell Kelly Brook apart from Dennis Hopper or Susie Amy (Chardonnay from Footballers’ Wives) which caused me some consternation…

And as a Christian I couldn’t pass up the chance to share with you some theological thinking related to human nature – as Thomas Boston (1676–1732) said:

“The four states of human nature are:
Primitive Integrity;
Entire Depravity;
Begun Recovery;
and Consummate Happiness or Misery.
It must be noted that in all four states, man is free to choose what to do or not to do according to his will.”

Anyway – you’re free to choose whether to check out this passable human cliché study with lame killings and an obligatory twist ending…

Poster Quote: “They died screaming - screaming ‘I want to kill my agent for putting me in the cast of House of 9’…”

Darkmatt Rating: öö (been there, done that, got the $5million)

"Footballers' Wives: the sequel... Chardonnay hadn't dressed to kill 8 strangers"

Darkmatters: H O M E