JP Nunez
Dracula is my favorite story of all time, so whenever I hear about a new cinematic adaptation of it, I’m immediately intrigued. Sure, I don’t always like these movies, but I at least have to give them a shot. So naturally, when I heard that House of Darkness was a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s classic novel, I had to check out the trailer right away, and I’m glad I did.
The movie stars Drag Me to Hell’s Justin Long and Before I Wake’s Kate Bosworth, and it’s about a man who drives an attractive woman home one night in hopes that they’ll hook up. However, as he soon finds out, her intentions are much more sinister than just a casual night of fun.
That’s pretty much all we know about House of Darkness, and the trailer isn’t much help in this regard. Other than telling us that this is a new spin on the Dracula story, it plays its narrative cards pretty close to the chest. We’re going to have to wait till we actually see the movie to learn more about its plot and how exactly it plays around with the Dracula mythos, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What this trailer does show us is the tone of the film, and if this is what House of Darkness is going to be like, I’m completely sold. The trailer starts out innocently enough, but then at around the 45-second mark, it takes a very dark turn. Granted, it never shows us anything too explicitly horrific, but it’s saturated with an atmosphere of dread from that moment right until the very end, and there are a couple of lines of dialogue in it that are utterly spine-tingling.
It’s all pretty subtle, and that’s just the way I like it. This is probably my favorite kind of horror, so as I said before, if the full movie is anything like this, I think we’re going to be in for a really great ride.
House of Darkness hits limited theaters on September 9 and VOD on September 13.
