Main cast: Becca Hirani (Hayley Jones), Andrew Hollingworth (Eric Jones), Faye Goodwin (Penny Jones), Lorena Andrea (Crystal), Tara MacGowran (Julie Soskin), and Tony Manders (Elliot)
Director: James Klass

House on Elm Lake is a remake of the previous movie by the director and his screenwriting partner, called Lucifer’s Night. Apparently for this one, they had an extra ten grand more than the budget of the previous movie. Personally, I’d have taken the money and do something else more fun, like investing it or just blowing it all up the nose

This one has a premise that is done to death already. Hayley and Eric Jones, along with their daughter Penny, move into this big house in the middle of nowhere because it is going for a ridiculously low price. Eric cheated on Hayley before and they want a change of scenery to repair their marriage. Alas, this house was the site of a gruesome murder, as a man named Eliot killed his son and wife before committing ritual suicide to honor Lucifer. Well, Elliot is now back, possessing Eric to continue to do his nasty deeds, which includes… hmm, just generally sulking around for the most part because these people don’t have the budget to do actual scary effects.

That’s right, this is one non-scary movie because throughout it all, there is only one single intensity of lighting for every interior scene, one that doesn’t provide any decent atmosphere for anything spooky to take place because it’s just too bright. Making things worse are the frequent bizarre choice of camera angles, such as panning away from a scene when someone is getting killed. I suspect such so-called discretionary shot is to hide the fact that they have no budget for a decent halfway kill scene. Well, that or they had to force a nephew to come in and do the camera work or Mr Klass would tell his parents that he had been smoking weed in his room.

Also, how old is Penny? The child playing her looks way too old for the character’s antics, such as hiding under the bed or sheets when she sees something frightening. That is the behavior of a three year old, not someone that looks like Faye Goodwin. This bizarre discrepancy between Ms Goodwin’s looks and Penny’s antics makes Penny seem, er, “special”. Is that the intention of this movie?

Then there is Hayley. Her behavior makes zero sense here. Oh, she sees demonic marks on Penny’s skin? Oh, she’ll just snuggle up to her daughter, kiss her goodnight, and then act like nothing has happened. Eric basically rapes her? Well, she’ll just pout and the next day will see her acting like everything is peachy. This is either one seriously delusional person or maybe Penny inherited her special nature from Hayley. At any rate, Hayley doesn’t act like someone sane at all, as a halfway rational person would have called the cops, doctor, or something when they are in her situation. No, she just goes about, acting like she’s really too stupid to notice or react to the abuse she and her daughter are getting.

As a result, it’s hard to get into this movie at all. It looks and feels wrong, the characters are all trying to outdo one another in coming off as the most mentally handicapped of them all, and the whole movie is just an awful waste of time. Worst of all, Eric spends the entire movie wearing the same pair of boxer-briefs to the point that I think I can smell them even from where I am sitting.

House on Elm Lake is a total failure in every single manner.