A24 Teases ‘X’ Prequel Movie Pearl With Official Poster; Trailer Tomorrow!

Neil La Bute films tend to have similar characteristics. The gifted playwright has a sense of words, so his scripts are smart and catchy. He is also interested in how men and women interact and the caustics of the battle of the sexes. His films are often filled with unlikable characters engaging in obnoxious behavior and he love black humour, which goes hand in hand with his propensity to explore controversial and upsetting subjects.

LaBute’s last, house of darkness, contains almost all of these elements. The film opens with a man (Justin Long) and a woman (Kate Bosworth) arriving at his secluded country home, which is quickly revealed to be a mansion. They are strangers: they met in a downtown bar, he took her home and she invited him in.

Immediately, it is clear that there is something wrong. Long’s character is an awkward talker who continually puts his foot in his mouth, says the wrong thing and then desperately backtracks. Bosworth’s character, with her long, ethereal blonde hair and white lace dress, looks like something out of a period film. Throughout the film, it is she who controls both the conversation and the situation.

The film is driven almost entirely by dialogue, not action. The entire first act takes place in one room and although LaBute wrote house of darkness being a film, it is easy to consider it as a production.

The resulting conversation covers the usual territory, including his job, his wealth, and their respective marital status. More importantly, it shines a light on their respective personalities: she’s sexy, mysterious, and honest, while he’s dark, horny, and a “fiber.” Truth and intentionality are important themes in the film; the dialogue repeatedly revisits the two as the night unfolds.

To say more would spoil the fun of the film, but not its surprises, which are rare. This is not a complaint: house of darkness lends a hand very early on, then comfortably unfolds exactly as intended, with no subversion or deviation.

The result is a dialogue-rich film that features a handful of actors in an isolated setting. It’s also only 83 minutes long, though even that short duration might prove difficult for some. It could be argued that this is a joke movie: a worthy premise of a short film stretched all the way to feature film. The “revelation” (if it can even be considered one) occurs before the twentieth minute, which for some will make the rest of the film seem endlessly obvious.

Genre-aware audiences will have no trouble picking up on the context cues, but that’s the point. LaBute isn’t trying to hide what’s going on or who Bosworth’s character is. In fact, this confirmation is where most of the film’s comedy comes from. It’s obvious what’s going on for everyone except Long’s character. He’s too busy excusing the weirdness of the situation, his date’s combative demeanor, and the many, many red flags because he is convinced that it will be worth having sex with this magnificent creature.

house of darkness is not interested in being surprising; the film — and LaBute — plays on the audience’s awareness of the situation to poke fun at the stupidity of Long’s character. The litmus test for enjoying the movie is simply whether you just watch (repeatedly) a dumb man get played because he’s so busy trying to fuck that he doesn’t realize he’s is already screwed.

Audiences who can embark on this daring experiment will find much to appreciate, especially the strength of its two lead performances and LaBute’s deadpan humor. Long excels as a fumbling moron who’s too busy thinking with his dick to realize — or acknowledge — the danger. Between his floppy hair and generic office attire, this character is a proxy for every man who’s staked out a bar for a casual, drunken encounter.

Compare that with Bosworth, which is an absolute delight. The actress perfectly captures the mysterious, sexy and playful qualities of the character. Her facial reactions as she listens to, pushes away, or traps Long’s character in a “lie” are a lot of fun. The interaction of these two main performances – both sexual and linguistic – ensures that house of darkness is never boring.

The light-hearted premise and talking production ensure that house of darkness is a movie that won’t work for everyone. But there’s also something admirable about LaBute’s arrogant confidence: it’s a huge risk to telegraph everything outright and stay the course (it certainly wouldn’t work without LaBute’s incredible dialogue ability and the solid performances of the two protagonists).

For audiences who can accept that the obvious and the inevitability is the joke, house of darkness makes for a witty, sometimes campy, often hilarious evening.