Before The Hunger Games made Jennifer Lawrence hot property in Hollywood, she shot this low-budget horror film in 2010. It has been released without much fanfare, presumably to limit the damage to her CV. The generic title suggests either a risible reboot (The Last House on the Left) or a smart subversion of the genre (The Cabin in the Woods). Instead, we get a by-the-numbers bore so bad its makers chose to insulate it from preview screenings (fittingly, the film’s Twitter hashtag is #HATES).
Following her parents’ divorce, Elissa (Lawrence) moves to a leafy suburb with her mother (Elisabeth Shue). They find themselves living next door to a house in which a young girl murdered her parents four years earlier. The girl disappeared, but her body was never found. Now her brother, Ryan (Max Thieriot), is living there. Despite her mother forbidding it, Elissa begins to fall for this mysterious loner until she begins to worry about what he might be hiding in his basement.
Lawrence does her best to shine as a scream queen despite the dull and derivative script by David Loucka, whose previous convictions include the disastrous Dream House. Director Mark Tonderai relies on stock shocks and increasingly convoluted twists in lieu of suspense. Don’t be tempted to put in an offer; this house is built on flimsy foundations.
