Wrongfully convicted of murdering her husband (Gonzalo Cubero) and son (Rosmel Bustamante), a woman (Ruddy Rodriguez) is sentenced to life without parole. Thirty years later, she's allowed to serve the rest of her sentence in home arrest, but with the poetic twist that she has to live out the rest of her sentence in the house where it all happened.
And of course, there's something spooky going on with the house. The movie jumps back and forth between two time periods: the events leading up to and including the night of of the murder, and a short span thirty years later when she is returned to the house and starts working out what actually happened that night.
Played by the same actress under a layer of unconvincing makeup, modern-day Dulce gets an ally in a catholic priest that helps her unravel the history of the house. From there the elements start falling into place - spooky night happenings with mysterious strangers roaming the house, family secrets, a second son who died shortly before that fateful night...
More accurately translated as The House of the End Times, La Casa del Fin de los Tiempos is a Venezuelan horror movie that set box-office records in its native homeland and got enough international attention to secure writer/director Alejandro Hidalgo a place making an English-language remake at New Line; That hasn't surfaced yet, but a 2017 Korean remake based on Hidalgo's script did.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's a very good movie. The crew does well within the obvious budget limitations, but the script leans too heavily on melodrama, contrivance, and corny sentimentality for my taste (an extended cutesy scene with children early on sets the tone and soured me considerably on the film).
Genre-savvy viewers will quickly catch on to what's going on - the way things fit together is not hugely original, but it is reasonably clever. The main problem is that for things to fall into place Hidalgo's script needs its characters to behave in very specific, dumb ways; This is a movie that would go very differently if people just used their damn words.
The genre trappings are pretty rote. The house is suitably dilapidated, and the family's poverty means that there are power cuts to justify lamp and candle-lit night jaunts, but the geography is never really clear. There's a witching-hour of sorts, a scary mysterious old man, that sort of thing. It's by no means elevated horror but it is 'tasteful', so expect a stately pace, an uplifting message and (sadly) an absence of crazy shit.
The acting is all over the place. I thought Ruddy Rodriguez was pretty good as Dulce, but her priestly deuteragonist was bad - and it's not helped by corny lines about the smiles of children and shit like that. Luckily he's not in the movie a whole lot. The kids do get a bit more screentime, and they're... child actors; I'll just say they don't distinguish themselves.
The camerawork and direction are good, but its efforts are mostly expended in making it seem like a Hollywood movie with very traditional shots - well made, but not especially memorable... Much like the movie around it.
For all its melodrama and cheap sentimentality, I do think its heart is in its right place and it does find an effective emotional center - but all the contrivances, melodrama and out-of-nowhere plot developments effectively killed off any goodwill for me. The good news is that it was successful enough to secure its director a job directing The Exorcism of God, which I found much more entertaining (it's got all the batshit craziness this one sorely lacks), and another one called No Voltees back in Venezuela. I'll have to check that out.
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