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Movie of the Day: House on Eden
I love found footage movies. I really do. I think that a well-made found footage horror movie can be frightening in ways that traditional narrative forms can’t. However, making a good found footage movie isn’t as easy as many people seem to think, and there are tons of extremely average (and below) movies that use the format. House on Eden is extremely average.
I watched House on Eden on AMC+, and the blurb at the top of the screen describes the movie as “Ghost Hunters meets The Blair Witch Project.” I rolled my eyes at that description because I assumed it was reductive, but it’s actually fairly accurate. House on Eden is quite derivative in its story and plot. In addition to the two movies mentioned by AMC, I also saw a few moments that echoed certain other movies, but I don’t want to dwell on that too much. I usually don’t mind if a movie is derivative. I don’t feel like you can be a mega-fan of genre films unless you’re okay with a large portion of movies in that genre feeling derivative in some ways. My biggest issue with House on Eden isn’t with the story, it’s with the apparent lack of logic when it comes to the found footage format.
The story follows two content creators, Kris and Celina, and their camera-guy, Jay, who investigate a house isolated deep in the woods. The house, which is described as being on Eden Road, appears to be abandoned despite looking like it’s still lived in and taken care of. As the trio investigates with some of the typical tools of the ghost-hunting trade, spooky stuff starts happening. This leads to revelations about the house and about Kris, and the story ends with lots of running and screaming (plus a finale that I won’t spoil).
So, the story is basic, but it’s fine. It’s enough to build a scary movie upon if the tension and scares are handled well. Sadly, most of the scares aren’t very good, and the tension is undermined most of the time. Many of the film’s failures are due to common missteps seen in lots of other found footage movies. Missteps in logic. Like, why would a character drop a camera, which is her only source of light, and run into the darkness while searching for someone? If this was real footage being edited together by someone after the events we’re watching, why would they choose to cut away from pivotal supernatural moments when it’s clear that a stationary camera caught the footage (or it wasn’t explicitly shown that the footage was lost)? How is it that so many moments are framed perfectly when the first section of the movie establishes that the people using the cameras swing them around wildly?
I know why all of these things happen. They’re done to be more cinematically dramatic. But “cinematically dramatic” is kind of the opposite of what found footage is best used for. All this is to say, House on Eden struggles to use its format in a way that makes sense in a logical, realistic way. That lack of critical thought about what to put on screen undermines just about every scene.
Star Rating: 2.5 out of 5
House on Eden isn’t the worst found footage movie, but I’ve seen many that do pretty much the same thing. At best, it is an average example of the format. House on Eden is now streaming on Shudder and AMC+.
Birthdays
Naomi Watts was born on September 28th, 1968. Naomi is probably best known to horror fans for either The Ring (2002) or Funny Games (2007). She’s been in a few other horror/thriller films throughout her career, including The Shaft (2001), Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996), Shut In (2016), and Goodnight Mommy (2022).
Other birthdays on September 28th:
- Mimi Craven (1957) – Mikey (1992), Daddy’s Girl (1996), and small roles in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chiller (1985), and Swamp Thing (1982)
- Mira Sorvino (1967) – Mimic (1997), The Presence (2010)
- Hilary Duff (1987) – The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)
Events on This Day
I Come in Peace was released in theaters on September 28th, 1990. This sci-fi action-horror film has been a minor favorite of mine for decades. It’s about an alien drug dealer who has come to Earth to harvest a vital ingredient from humans. When the alien police officer tracking the drug dealer is killed, it’s up to a renegade cop (played by Dolph Lundgren) to stop the reign of terror.
