Representing evil is black smoke and a pentagram painted on a wall. Betty tells her guests that they are “guilty as sin.” Susan says that the late Melissa is “safe” and “happy,” though we’re not told where she is or how Susan knows this. Several times Susan tells the couples that “light destroys darkness.” But what light is she referring to? When she’s killed with a shotgun blast to the chest, she’s promptly resurrected and her body begins radiating tendrils of light that envelop Jack and Stephanie-and burn Tin Man, destroying him and his chance to kill the couple. (A dead girl? An angel? A hallucination?) The verse isn’t given much follow-through as the movie shuffles the duties of light-giver off on Susan. The film opens with the text of John 1:5: “The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” This reference to Christ is clear in biblical contexts, but we’re not led to understand it at all inside House. Their only hope for salvation comes in the form of a young goth-figure-look-alike (named Susan) who utters cryptic, seemingly helpful advice. It gets worse: Tin Man and the three hosts stalk the couples, doing battle with them and urging them to give in to both physical and spiritual death.

During the succession of grimy “challenges” it orchestrates in dark basement rooms, dank hallways and trick closets, the house forces each couple to grapple with past trauma (sin) and relive the most agonizing, shame-filled moments of their lives. Seemingly inspired by Jigsaw’s gory games in the Saw movies, Tin Man orders the four to kill one among them before sunrise if the other three are to survive.īeyond this, the inn knows secrets about its four terrified guests. And then a crazed killer known as Tin Man shows up-because, according to Betty, the couples brought “guilt” to the house.

Pushy hostess Betty, her hostile husband, Stewart, and their lurching, socially inept adult son, Pete, immediately set their four guests on edge with bizarre behavior and comments. Stranded, still lost and now angry, the two walk to the creepy-crawly Wayside Inn, where they find lovers Randy and Leslie in the same stranded state via the same metal and bad road.

When almost-ex-spouses Jack and Stephanie try to take a poorly marked shortcut back to the interstate after getting lost near Montgomery, two tires blow out when they drive over chunks of scrap metal. As the old saying goes, “For want of a nail the kingdom was lost.” And for want of a decent map and a better country road, Jack and Stephanie Singleton get lost in rural Alabama on a dark and stormy night. Lacking even little things can lead to colossal disasters.

House by Frank E. Peretti