New girl moves to town, meets boy who lives next door. Boy next door lives in the house where his little sister killed their parents four years ago. All the adults in the neighborhood wish the boy would just move away so they could raze the house, because it's totally ruining their property values. The other local boys give this boy a seriously hard time, trash his car, beat up on him six-to-one, and toss flaming rolls of toilet paper into his house.
The new girl, despite being initially afraid of the boy (or, more specifically, afraid of the story that defines him in the town's eyes), starts hanging out with him, despite her new friends' (not to mention her mother's) disapproval. After spending some time with him, the new girl learns that this boy is sensitive, and caring, and, well, nice. Especially compared to the other boy she met at the beginning of the movie, who nearly tries to date rape her at a house party.* As far as she's concerned, this boy shouldn't be ostracized and picked on just because of a terrible event in his past that he had nothing to do with.
That's the basic set-up for House at the End of the Street. Yes, there's some other shit going on (like the boy keeps his sister, presumed dead by everyone else, locked up in a room in the basement of their house) but initially, anyway, it's a story about a girl and a sad, abused boy she meets. From here, the movie could go one of two ways: Romeo and Juliet, or Fear.
Guess which path House at the End of the Street follows?
I know. I'm as surprised as you are, Jennifer.
The thing is, the movie's set up from the start as a thriller, so it couldn't possibly be Romeo and Juliet unless the filmmakers were interested in doing something new (and as we all know, Hollywood doesn't like "something new"). And that's fine. This movie was clearly intended to be cranked out quickly and cheaply so it could make some easy money** for the three production companies associated with it.
But here's what bothers me. By the end of this movie (at which point we learn that the boy is, in fact, a psychopath who will try to kill the girl--and a lot of other people) we are left with two "morals." One of which is fine by me, but the other one? Not so much.
Moral number one: Listen to your mom. This one's for all the girls out there who like to date those "misunderstood" boys in high school. Don't do it, girls, because your mom is right. The "misunderstood" boy is usually not so much misunderstood as he is, well, bad news. I can't disagree with this kind of message, especially in a potboiler like House at the End of the Street.
Moral number two, however, is problematic: Go ahead and pick on the outsider, because he probably deserves it. Remember the date rapist I mentioned? He is the boy's primary tormenter in the movie. It's he and his douchebag friends who start smashing up the boy's car, and then start smashing up the boy. Their reason for doing so, of course, is simply because he's the weird kid who insists on living in his dead family's house. And when their fight lands the date rapist in the hospital, the parents of the douchebags freak out, demanding that the boy go to jail, even though there are dozens of witnesses who can testify that he didn't start it.
Early in the film, the new girl and her mom attend a potluck in the neighborhood, where all the adults talk about how they wish the house would burn down. "Not with him in it," one of them rushes to say, but it's clear they just want him to disappear. It's all about them and their property values, not him and whatever emotional support he could probably use from his self-centered neighbors. The new girl and her mom are appropriately appalled, and so are we. Later, of course, we come to find that the adults and the date rapist and his pals were right. They should've run the boy out of town when they had the chance.***
Unlike the first message, this second message is impossible to support. It advocates intolerance and abuse. I wonder if the filmmakers even realize it? I hope not, because if they do that's some pretty irresponsible mainstream filmmaking.
In any case, House at the End of the Street is a terrible movie, and not just because of this second, unfortunate message to its viewers. It's a silly premise, the scares are not very scary, the twists are dumb, the clichés are everywhere, and in the end it just doesn't make that much sense.
Jennifer Lawrence is the one bright spot. In a way, she was a bad choice for the stereotypical "damsel in distress" role these slasher-type movies require, because she's such a bad-ass it's hard to believe she's ever truly in danger. She handles the date rapist near the beginning of the film quite well, and perhaps accidentally (again, for this sort of movie) sets the tone for herself as a woman who will defy anyone to mess with her. She did the best she could with the material given to her. But I hope she never again has to work on a film quite so beneath her talents.
Don't be sad, Jennifer. Your other movies are mostly pretty good! Mostly.
POINTLESS FOOTNOTES
*The would-be rapist later refers to her as a "bitch." Classy.
**$12 million grossed on a $7 million budget. Not bad.
***To really drive the point home, the boy murders a police officer--who was the one person in town naive enough to stand up for him against all the assholes (who are ultimately proven right).
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