Tense and interesting
by Nav Qateel
House of Bad, turned out to be a surprisingly good film with great performances from each of the leads, and a story that blended horror with thriller perfectly. It was a bit of a slow burner but finished all too quickly thanks to a nice bit of pacing from director Jim Towns. Towns’ last film was a ladies affair as far as the characters were concerned, titled, Manhaters!, which also featured mostly women, and now his latest one has the talents of Heather L. Tyler, Sadie Katz and Cheryl Sands that star in this single location, haunted house effort.
House of Bad is about three sisters who steal a case full of heroin and hide out in a house until enough time has gone by to risk showing their faces again. They plan to meet a buyer then hightail it to Mexico and get away from their messed up lives.
- House of Bad
- Directed by
Jim Towns - Cast
Heather L. Tyler, Sadie Katz, Cheryl Sands - DVD/VOD Release Date
3 December 2013 - Nav’s Grade: B
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The house the ladies hole up in is the house that saw two of the women suffer under an abusive father who later died of cancer, and also where their mother and unborn sibling die a bloody death. The other woman is a half-sister from the abusive father. After a couple of days killing time, half-sister, Lily (Cheryl Sands) begins to see the ghostly figure of a pregnant woman covered in blood. Lily, the youngest of the trio is coming off heroin and assumes its withdrawals kicking in, but the visions persist. Teig (Heather L. Tyler) is the eldest and suffered the worst under their father, and she’s the one who’s taken control of the situation. Teig is an ex-con with two strikes against her already and just wants out of the life she’s in so came up with this plan to save the three of them, but something in the house is working against them.
Middle sister Sirah (played by the lovely Sadie Katz, and her abs), is the one who stole the case of heroin and is the only one not being haunted by their dead parents, but she also senses something wrong with the house. Sirah was working as a lap-dancer and also wants out of the life, but eventually everything falls apart as the dead start messing with the living and turning sister against sister.
With a tiny budget of only $150 thousand for this indie, House of Bad turned out to be a far better film than expected, especially the quality of the production and acting, coupled with a tense and interesting story that made for the ideal horror/thriller experience. I particularly liked the way the tale unfolds, while giving us just enough to keep us intrigued, plus the women had great back stories making it all the more believable. I find a lot of movies suffer from the fact that they put their characters in situations that the audience find hard to swallow.
The direction from Jim Towns played no small part in the success of House of Bad, as he helmed this film well, guiding the trio to display their talents to the fullest. Towns is someone who’s now on my radar, in hope that I can catch more of the same or perhaps even better from him as I really enjoyed his style. He certainly knew how to use his budget wisely and how to get the most from everyone involved in this low-budget production. I highly recommend House of Bad, if horror and thriller is your thing, and with the addition of three sexy chicks, you can’t really go wrong.
