HOUSE OF DARKNESS
Hap meets Mina at a bar, offers her a ride home, and finds himself invited into her country estate for a nightcap. Along with some sexually loaded cat-and-mouse play, there’s more to this potential one-night stand, and it’s killer. If Bram Stoker wrote a #MeToo version of Dracula, you’d have something like Neil LaBute‘s House Of Darkness.
All the Easter eggs are there for literary fans. The costumes and production design scream at the audience. My suspicions were confirmed as soon as Mina introduced herself. Along comes Lucy. That was the final nail in the coffin for me, pun intended. Hap Jackson, if you reach, is the inverse initials for Jonathan Harper.
Kate Bosworth is powerful. Dressed in a long white lace dress, flowing blonde locks, and a choked to-boot, her elegance pours off the screen. A feminist owning her sexuality, Mina is never afraid to speak plainly. Bosworth is always controlling the scene. Gia Crovatin plays Lucy with a similarly straightforward presence. Each performance is a slightly nuanced take on the other but in the same family.
Justin Long hails supreme as Hap. The middle management everyman looking to get laid and fumbling in the presence of a beautiful woman is a universal story. Witnessing him struggle to keep up with Bosworth keeps the audience engaged, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Long’s effortless charm slowly wanes as the plot rolls along. As Hap gets more intoxicated, so to does his misogynistic inner thoughts. LaBute is famous for writing meaty female roles and exposing the darkness in men. Long devours this role at every turn. With a resume including films like Jeepers Creepers, Tusk, After Life, Barbarian, and Drag Me To Hell, there is a reason he’s constantly working. He’s a damn genre darling.
House of Darkness works for those who come to terms with that LaBute knows you know how this story ends. The fun comes in the complexity of his dark humor, his delicious dialogue, and Bosworth and Long playing a table tennis match in which he has no idea he’s losing. The audience is in on the joke, and that’s where the fun lives.
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Year:2022
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Runtime:88 minutes
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Language:English
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Country:United States
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Premiere:International Premiere
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Rating:15
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Director:Neil LaBute
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Screenwriter:Neil LaBute
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Producer:Daryl Freimark, Tim Harms, Shaun Sanghani, Shelley D. Needham
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Cast:Justin Long, Kate Bosworth, Gia Crovatin
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Cinematographer:Daniel Katz
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Editor:
David Hyatt
2D charcoal and pen animation and an ominous score (in fact, my six-year-old son heard it in the background and exclaimed, “That’s so scary!”) 
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