150 Words About . . . "HOUSEBOUND"

Hailing from New Zealand, Housebound is a film I recommend to horror fans who don’t mind a few giggles with their goosebumps. In fact, that’s my only beef with what is otherwise a very effective fright flick -- I wish the folks who made Housebound had gone darker with the material (even if the humor does work more often than not). What’s it about? When perpetual delinquent Kylie is busted in the act of robbing an ATM, the courts sentence her to house arrest in her own personal hell: her mother’s home. If things weren’t bad enough, once Kylie settles in she starts seeing/hearing stuff that suggests the house where she grew up is now haunted. Housebound gets a little too “Scooby-Doo” at times, once our anti-heroine starts digging into the mystery of what the heck’s going on, but this one still ranks among my favorite genre films of 2014.