Wrongfully convicted of murdering her husband (Gonzalo Cubero) and son (Rosmel Bustamante), a woman (Ruddy Rodriguez) is sentenced to life. Thirty years later, she's allowed to serve the rest of her sentence in home arrest, and sent to live out the rest of her days 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 where Dulce lost her husband and son, and a short span thirty years later when she is returned to the house and starts working out what actually happened on 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 to the film).
Genre-savvy viewers will quickly catch on to what's going on, and the way things fit together is reasonably clever. But for things to fall into place plot dictates that people behave in really stupid ways; this is a movie that would go very differently if people just used their damn words and behaved as if they had half a brain.
Meanwhile the genre trappings are pretty commonplace. 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 outré elements.
The acting is all over the place. I thought Ruddy Rodriguez was pretty good as Dulce, but her priestly deuteragonist was pretty bad - and it's not helped by corny lines about the smiles of children and shit like that. Luckily he's not in a whole lot. The kids do get a bit more screentime, and they're... child actors; let's just say they don't distinguish themselves.
The camerawork and direction is pretty decent, 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 and out-of-nowhere plot developments effectively kill off any goodwill. It's a shame, but luckily it was successful enough that we'll hopefully get to see better genre stuff from this particular director, and Venezuela in general.
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