Girl House

On the surface, this seems like the most base concept you could get for a slasher in the modern era. A Big Brother-style house of webcam girls doing anything and everything, and a killer stalking them seems like it would be the most baseline, moronic thing right? It's actually far more than that. For starters, we have Loverboy, the killer. He is the model of the below-average, overweight, schlubby, basement-dwelling loner. He can't talk to women. All he can do is lust after them from afar and imagine a world where he is handsome enough to get their attention. He makes instant connections with the women of GirlHouse, because he cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Any attention paid to him MUST be positive. And if a woman pays him attention, she must be his. It's not a terribly deep exploration of that kind of mental illness -- this is a horror movie, it's only going so deep -- but it's given its fair time. You almost feel sorry for him, as he so desperately wants to be loved and possess what he loves. Until he goes psycho and puts on a mask reminiscent of Tourist Trap. The object of his desire is the new girl in GirlHouse, Kylie. She's a college student who's facing not being able to go to school unless she can take the financial burden off her mom. She's moving into GirlHouse to pay for college. From the jump, Kylie isn't thrilled with her decision, but she doesn't see any other way to make it work. She's determined to make it work, no matter how uncomfortable she might feel doing it. In a non-horror movie, obviously they'd go deeper, but here, it's done well enough. And when the time comes, she's a solid Final Girl, showing the kind of resilience and will to live that makes Final Girls memorable. The story is drawn out very well, building relationships and slowly cracking the thin armor keeping Loverboy's sanity together. It's an hour in before he finally snaps and finds GirlHouse and the killing begins. Yet again, nothing new -- your average Friday The 13th or Halloween has a lull of 45 minutes or so in the middle -- but the way it's done here is different. In any other slasher, the killer is in kill mode already. Yes, you know Loverboy is gonna snap, but when he is just communicating with Kylie through the website, there's a sense he's trying to hold it together ... until he can't. No slasher is complete without good kills, and brother, do we gotta talk about the kills here. If anything sets it apart from other slashers, it's the kills. These are inventive and gory, but that's not the selling point here. Loverboy's kills are more fueled by rage and hurt and mental illness than any I've seen. He takes his time making them suffer. There's one kill where he uses a dildo, jams it in a model's throat, and then uses masking tape to not only tape it in her mouth, but tape her hands to her face. Thus, she can't get it out, she can't even get her hands out, and she slowly suffocates. Another girl -- the hot blonde that is referred to as the "featured attraction" of the house" -- has her face sliced with a box cutter and her fingers chopped off, and then leaves her to kill herself because she can't bear to live in such a state. THAT'S COLD. Other slashers operate with a ruthless efficiency; he wants to make these women pay. Could it be a bit better? Sure, the middle part drags in places, especially the argument between Kylie and her new boyfriend, which jumps around emotions and points of view so much, I feel like there's lines missing. The cutaways to other porn fans around the world are useless. Considering the way the movie ends, you wonder why the same action wasn't taken when they had the chance earlier. And while the movie doesn't make any judgment on adult entertainment and sex work, Kylie's friend does, and her constant negative attitude serves no purpose, since she's got maybe five total minutes of screen time. And the ex-roommate in the house who comes back literally serves no purpose but to increase the body count. Those flaws are minor, though. It builds characters well, it establishes the villain better than most slashers, and the last act is PURE adrenaline.