Critics reviews

Set in the mid 80s, with pitch-perfect clothes, hair and props, The House of the Devil earns its screams with integrity, building slowly to a strobe-lit, blood-slimed, twist-ending final few minutes. Except for those last few minutes and the first shocking event, which happens about halfway through, our growing sense of dread is fed mainly by relatively subtle cues.

The film unfolds at a pace that some will find excruciating, and given West's 1980s fetishism, it's a fair question whether this was about building suspense or about giving us more time to admire the props. Perhaps both. Doc is screening a 35mm print, and I'm sure that every splice, pop, and emulsion scratch will add to the time-capsule experience

The House of the Devil uses its feathered hair and tight Jordaches to burrow into our collective subconscious rather than make us giggle with recognition. In other words, the film's re-creation of the period is all about evoking the uncanny. But even these potentially gimmicky elements are all but forgotten once one experiences the movie, so powerful is its slow building, tension-and-release structure, and so disarming is its beauty of a lead actress, Jocelin Donahue.