BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: A Review Of THE HOUSE OF LAST THINGS

 

Many of you already know this but for those who don’t I suffered a heart attack not long ago. An abscess tooth caused an infection in my stomach which caused it to stop functioning and the stress on my body put too much strain on my heart. This coupled with the complete loss of the site for several months and having a childhood friend steal a shit load of my screeners (along with attempting to seduce my wife in the process..big fuck you goes out to Fabian Ingraham) Made myself and the rest of the crew here at B-is For Best get very behind. The film we’ll be discussing today is one that sadly spent much longer on my desk then it should have. So a huge apology goes out to Revolver Entertainment whom sent this wonderful film over (along with a handful of others which were stolen by the aforementioned cocksucker.) Without any further ado lets take a look at THE HOUSE OF LAST THINGS

THE HOUSE OF LAST THINGS introduces a young lady named Kelly. Coming from nothing and heading nowhere, Kelly takes a job watching the house of a wealthy music critic named Alan and  his mentally damaged wife Sarah. After they hand her the keys and head off to a much needed vacation in Italy Kelly brings in her developmentally challenged brother Tim and her scum bag con man boyfriend Jesse. Everything seems fine if quite dysfunctional until strange things begin to happen coming to a head when the normally only assholeish Jesse makes a turn for the downright evil when he kidnaps a strange little boy named Adam from the local grocery store. Things only get odder and odder from this point as the lines between the past and present, reality and fantasy shatter around them tossing them into a whirlpool of madness.

An instantly captivating tale of surreal sickness, House of Last Things is a ballsy psychological thriller that sits in the middle between Along Came A Spider and Donnie Darko, taking the bold step of being something new and in this case it pays off big!

The acting here was great all the way around but standing out among the group was the young man who plays Tim. Portraying a developmentally challenged person is a very difficult task.In most cases actors taking on a role like this fail miserably, either over or under playing things and oftentimes create role that are downright offensive. Here we have a light handed approach, a character that comes across as both childlike and frustrated by a world that sees nothing but a little boy where there is clearly a man.

The cinematography here, although digitally shot, took a very cinematic approach, with lingering slow burn pans, smooth milky transitions and a slightly smokey appearance that in conjunction with the gorgeous classical music score, gave the entire thing the feel of an extended dream. You won’t be sure if it’s a dream or a nightmare but one thing is certain, this is not quite the world we live in and the rules of our plane of existence don’t always apply here

You’ll notice that this review is a bit shorter then most of the ones I write here. That’s because to say more would spoil something and I feel you should go in as blind as possible and enjoy this thing for the backwards, upside down ,and sideways rollercoaster that it is. I give it no middle fingers up. I highly recommend you give this 

one a shot.