House at the End of the Street (2012)
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Synopsis:
House at the End of the Street (2012) is a horror thriller movie directed by Mark Tonderai and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Gil Bellows and Elisabeth Shue.
Seeking a fresh start, newly divorced Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and her daughter Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) find the house of their dreams in a small, upscale, rural town. But when startling and unexplainable events begin to happen, Sarah and Elissa learn the town is in the shadows of a chilling secret. Years earlier, in the house next door, a daughter named Carrie-Ann (Eva Link) killed her parents (Krista Bridges and John Healey) in their beds, and disappeared—leaving only a brother, Ryan (Max Thieriot), as the sole survivor. The neighbors explain that Carrie-Ann ran into the woods after the double murder and, though her body was never found, it was believed she drowned in the nearby dam. Ryan now lives alone in the house; the neighborhood hates him because his house drives down their property values. They want to purchase his house and demolish it, but Ryan won't sell the house.
Weaver (Gil Bellows), a local police officer, appears to be Ryan's only supporter. Against the wishes of Elissa’s mother, Elissa and Ryan begin a relationship after he offers her a ride while she was walking home in a storm. He tells Elissa that he accidentally injured Carrie-Ann while they were swinging one day, giving her brain damage and making her extremely aggressive. For his safety, Ryan was sent away from home to take care of a sickly aunt and didn’t return home until after the murders. It is revealed to the viewer early in the film that Ryan has secretly been taking care of Carrie-Ann in a hidden room beneath a trap door in the laundry room. Carrie-Ann attacks him when he enters the room, and after sedating her, he tells her about Elissa and that he wants Carrie-Ann to leave Elissa alone. As the relationship between Ryan and Elissa progresses, Carrie-Ann escapes the room on two occasions and appears to attempt to attack Elissa. During the second escape attempt, Ryan accidentally kills Carrie-Ann while trying to hide her from some local students. In his grief, Ryan visits a diner where a Penn State student waitress (Jordan Hayes) attempts to comfort him.
While visiting Elissa’s battle of the bands at the local high school, several high school students vandalize Ryan’s car and then attack him. While defending himself, he breaks the ankle of one of the students (Nolan Gerard Funk) and then runs home. The remaining students announce they're going to burn his house down. Elissa drives Ryan's broken car home and stops the fire, but while inside finds Ryan's secret room. Opening the door, she is attacked by Carrie-Ann right as Ryan arrives home to stop the attack. At this moment, it is revealed to the viewer that the current Carrie-Ann is actually the Penn State student from the diner, being held captive and made to look like Carrie-Ann.
In order to keep Carrie-Ann secret, he knocks Elissa out and ties her to a chair in the secret room. He reveals that Carrie-Ann actually died during the swinging accident but that he needed Carrie-Ann in his life. He knocks out the Penn State student and while removing her body from the room says he is going to make Elissa his new Carrie-Ann so he can have them both in his life. It becomes apparent to the viewer by this point that the first "Carrie-Ann" had never attacked Elissa but rather was another victim attempting to escape from Ryan. Weaver arrives at the house after a request from Sarah. Ryan says Elissa isn't there, but Weaver hears her phone ring inside. In a scuffle with Ryan inside the dark house, Weaver is stabbed to death in the laundry room after he drops his gun and malfunctioning flash light. During this time, Elissa escapes the secret room but is chloroformed by Ryan and thrown into the trunk of his car. When she awakes, she finds the dead Penn State student in the trunk and escapes his car. Sarah arrives at the house and hears Elissa's screams, but she is stabbed by Ryan and thrown in the laundry room. In a struggle in the dark laundry room, Ryan is shot several times by Elissa using the dropped objects by Weaver, and Ryan is then knocked out by Sarah.
On a later date, as Elissa and Sarah move out of their rented house, Elissa stares at a tree where Ryan once told her he learned the lesson that people hold multiple layers of secrets. In the final scene, Ryan is shown in a mental hospital. His inner thoughts reveal that his parents had hidden Carrie-Ann’s death to the public by dressing up Ryan as Carrie-Ann. When Ryan protested that he wasn’t Carrie-Ann, he was abused by his parents, explaining why he killed his parents years ago.
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Production:
The film was mainly filmed in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in July 2010 and was scheduled to be released in April 2012 but was moved to a September 2012 release. A tie-in novelization of the movie was released on August 12, 2012 to accompany the movie by Little, Brown Company.
Reception:
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. It currently holds a 10% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews from critics with the consensus stating: "Poorly conceived, clumsily executed, and almost completely bereft of scares, House at the End of the Street strands its talented star in a film as bland as its title."
Directed by Mark Tonderai
Produced by Aaron Ryder
Peter Block
Ryan Kavanaugh
Written by David Loucka
Jonathan Mostow
Starring:
Jennifer Lawrence
Max Thieriot
Gil Bellows
Elisabeth Shue
Music by Theo Green
Cinematography: Miroslaw Baszak
Editing by Steve Mirkovich
Karen Porter
Studio: FilmNation Entertainment
Distributed by Relativity Media
Release date: September 21, 2012
Running time: 101 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $10 million
Box office: $13,840,065
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