HOUSE OF 9
UK, 2005, 86 minutes, Colour.
Dennis Hopper, Kelly Brook, Hippolyte Girardot, Peter Capaldi, Susie Amy, Raffaello Degruttola, Ashley Walters.
Directed by Steven R. Monroe.
House of 9 is an exercise in psychological horror. The film opens with nine people randomly abducted from the streets of London. They find themselves confined in a mansion, no possibilities for exit. A voice (voiced by Jim Carter) tells them that they are there to survive and gain five million pounds. There is to be only one survivor.
The film’s characters are somewhat stereotypical, easily identifiable from their appearance, behaviour, information about their work. Dennis Hopper is a rather unlikely priest. Kelly Brook is a dancer in the chorus – not likely in real life. French actor Hippolyte Girardot has the most histrionic character to represent while Ashley Walters is a rap singer, bigoted against white people.
For a while, the group bonds together in different ways, not thinking about killing each other. However, after what seems to be an accident and one character dies, the film opens up to antagonisms, attempted killings. Ultimately, there is one survivor – who exits the house, but has hallucinations about some of the dead people holding their bags of money.
While audiences will be interested in the situation, wondering what will happen, the film is really just an exercise rather than a character study and audiences wondering who will be next and how – rather than why.
1. An international production? French and American actors with British? The London setting?
2. The credibility of the plot? Contrived for the sake of the situation, the characters, the eliminations? The abductions – and the nine people in the elaborate mansion, the television surveillance?
3. The title, the nine different people, finding themselves drugged, awakening in the house? One to survive?
4. The voice, ethereal, disembodied? The presentation of the situation, the promise of the money, switching off – but the film showing the surveillance cameras being watched.
5. The characters and their self-assertion or non-self-assertion? How well delineated were the characters – how credible? Dennis Hopper as Father Duffy, the mock-Irish accent? His mouthing religious themes? His attempt at control? The policeman giving him the gun? His not wanting to use it? The confrontation with Francis, his shooting? The surprise of his being stabbed to death? Lea, her background in dancing, attractive, self-effacing? Her interactions with the others, Francis trying to electrocute her? The audience thinking she was dead? Her recovery, the confrontation, stabbing Francis? Surviving? Max, the businessman, entrepreneur, well known, his knowing Claire? His fears, self-assertion? The discussions with Father Duffy, with the others? His taking the food? His being shot? Claire, the tennis player, arrogant, wanting to drink, the clashes with Shona? Her death? Shone, in prison, on parole, angry, assertive? Sharing with Claire? Their fight and her death? Al B, his prejudices, his eruptions in racist rants? His rap singing? His dancing with Francis’s wife? Her death? Deliberate or not? His being attacked, the confrontations with Jay? His killing Jay? His being put in seclusion, Max giving him the food? His being found hanged? Francis’s wife, her fears, her being the first to die?
6. The building itself, the attempt at bashing the door and failing? The food and the limitations? People being greedy, hiding the food? The accommodation? The growing bickering, the antagonism?
7. The film as an exercise in film-making rather than a psychological study?
