House of Dust
House of Dust
| 01 November 2013 (USA)
House of Dust Trailers

College students exploring an abandoned insane asylum accidentally shatter canisters holding the cremains of former mental patients. Inhaling the dusty ash filling the air, they're soon possessed by the souls once held within them. One is a convicted serial killer from 1950.

Reviews
aesgaard41

Every once in a while Hollywood tries a new variation of the haunted house genre, and every once in a while, it works. This is not one of those times. The movie starts out with a flashback with a doctor doing lobotomies when one of his patients escapes and kills the doctor. The orderlies then take him out, stage a murder scene and burn the evidence in the hospital crematorium. Jump to the present and we get into the real movie; actress Inbar Lavi plays Emma, a new student at Eastern Connecticut State University. Her roommate, Gabby, introduces her to Colt and Dylan and take her to a burning trashcan party in the vacant front property in front of the abandoned Redding Home Asylum. In time, we learn Emma is psychic, although she has been using medicine to drown out the voices for years. When she is drawn into the hospital by the voices of one of patients killed at the start, her friends follow her inside but accidentally knock over a shelf with the forgotten canisters holding the ashes of the three cremated in the prologue. The spirits of the three patients infest the three as a result - Colt becomes psychotic, Dylan develops Intense OCD and Gabby becomes manic depressive. After the local mean girl gets murdered, Emma starts to realize what's happening. It's not very scary; in fact, the plot does get tedious and drags in places, but it is atmospheric and the acting is pretty good. However, it kind of ends on an incomplete note with no police involvement or resolutions. The other big problem I have is that the movie is based loosely on the discovery of actual abandoned human ashes found abandoned at Oregon State Hospital in 2015. Making a horror movie instead of a documentary on this discovery seems quite in bad taste to me. "House of Dust" is a fair horror movie that isn't really that memorable except for this fact. It's worth a look for its creepy moments, but it's not as intense as one would expect a horror movie should be.

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InDyingArms

I love anchor bay entertainment! But like most other distribution companies, they run out of money, and I guess "House of dust" is what you get when that occurs..First off, the story of this movie. Once I got the main idea of the story, a huge face palm was planted on my face. In this case, the story of this movie is clichéd, and has been seen millions, of billions of times before, delivering absolutely nothing new in the sense of entertainment. The so called "Legend" is a massive cliché that has portrayed in many, many other films, as well as the characters, location, etc.Next, the killer, or foe in this tale. One word, once again, cliché. The killed has been portrayed in many others films! Yet again I say! And in this movie, the killer wasn't even executed all that well, making him seem foolish, and stupid in a way that drags this film deeper then it already is..Lastly, the cinematography, sound, overall execution, and characters. The characters, or in this case main characters were, like the rest of this movie clichéd. They were a bunch of collage kids that listened to the strong, "better" guy of the group, getting themselves into trouble, and DEATH. The cinematography of the film was shallow. Some shots were flawed, making it look terrible. Some of the lighting, as well made the scenes look dull, and misplaced. Overall depressing - like when it wasn't meant to. Moving along, almost everything of the film was reliant of CGI, and it was horrible looking. They used CGI from fire, to a shattering light bulb. All of which was horrible, misplaced looking. Finally, the sound. Most of the soundtrack didn't fit! Some music sequences sounded like action when noting really was happening, throwing us viewers off track! And concluding, the scares. Horrible! There were none, no tension, thrills, nothing. Once we got anything, thought, it was lame, horrid jump scares! No! In conclusion. This is a bad, bad, bad low budget film that tried to be more then it was, leading in an ultimate downfall! This movie failed from beginning, to end! More money wasted! Stay away from this one, I honestly have no intentions of recommending this to anyone, for it's another uneventful, cliché fest that angers, instead pleasing.

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seans_life

This is a movie that is for sure good as a cheap rental. It needed more action/a faster pace at certain points of the movie though to make it better for more people and to make it likable for a wider audience. Also with a bigger budget they could have had some better special effects but what they did have didn't look bad on screen. In regards to the story I liked the idea of how this spirit came about possessing people. There also was an interesting back story even if it wasn't too complex but it was well set out for us at the beginning. I also think the ending was interesting in that the spirit found a host which it should be able to control easier and mold into what he needs the person to become so he can create more havoc on the earth eventually. Definitely a second movie could be made and be entertaining. No way this movie was a 1 like someone said on the IMDb message boards for this movie and yeah it wasn't a blockbuster 8+ movie but it was watchable and enjoyable for the most part. Also in regards to the acting for this it was solid if not spectacular. I have seen much, much worse and the acting did not make me want to shut off the movie. As for specific acting Inbar Lavi is smoking hot. I don't think people are going to mind seeing more of her on the big screen. She delivered her lines fine and it would have been interesting to see if this cast could have handled a more fast paced script which is what this movie should have had more of. Hopefully we will see this in a sequel. To be honest I can't remember the last person in a movie that I said was smoking hot before Inbar Lavi in a long while. A new pretty face for the movies? Maybe.I hate to put a score out of 10 on this and so I won't if I don't have to while posting this review.

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delia-berlin

Beautifully shot ghost story full of spooky moon lit scenes of northeast Connecticut. Recognizing scenes of the wonderful campus of Eastern Connecticut State University is a special treat for Willimantic area fans. Inspired by a real story of cremation remains of patients found at an abandoned asylum for the "mentally insane" this fantasy often gets too close to reality for comfort. A.D. Calvo has a knack for contrasting beauty and horror, both through images and sounds. This is not a movie to watch alone. In the end, the boundaries of mental health and sanity blur as fantasy and reality trade places. As always, questions are answered as new questions remain.

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