The Roost: AKA – The Return of Uncle Fester

The Roost

Is it a horror film? Is it a comedy? Or, is it both? Wait a minute, I know…it’s Pat! At first, I thought The Roost was a comedy masquerading as a wannabe horror film. But, after awhile, I finally figured out where director Ti West was trying to go with his unique postmodern tale of terror – he wanted to revisit every B horror film ever made.

The Roost starts out with the host of an old black and white TV show, “Frightmare Theater,” telling us the story of four teenagers traveling to a wedding on Halloween night. Our host – who bares an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Fester from The Addams Family – keeps us up to date on their unfortunate mishaps once they become stranded at a creepy old farm in the middle of nowhere. Of course, these stereotypical teens start getting picked off one by one at the farm via an assortment of flesh-eating zombies and vampire bats; and, our bald host hurries to finish his tale before his master returns.

The only part of this campy horror disarray that came close to scaring me was the cinema vérite style West used in filming the scenes inside the barn – a la The Blair Witch Project. The jerky, hand-held camera shots intensified the cat and mouse game ensuing onscreen because you never see the bad guy until it is too late – you only feel his presence. I applaud West for using this particular type of cinematography because he forces us to identify with the victims in the barn; but, unfortunately, as soon as the doomed teens venture outside the barn, the camera evens out, and all of the suspense vanishes.

In a way, my reaction to the film was almost as ambiguous as Pat’s gender. One minute I was slightly startled by a vampire bat swooping down from the hay loft; and, the next minute I was laughing at a zombie stumbling past an open window. Yet, when I heard the audience also burst into laughter I knew the horror film I was watching was now a comedy. West took a risk by using subtle humor in The Roost to offset and intensify its sporadically miniscule scary spots; but, unfortunately, his risk didn’t pay off because he forgot that suspense is ten times more terrifying than genre swapping (or is it gender swapping?).

The other postmodern element of West’s film involves the fake Uncle Fester host of “Frightmare Theater.” I knew his interruption was getting out of hand when I started wondering if Snake L. Davidson of “Hardline” fame was coaching Uncle Fester behind the scenes. Right when I was in the middle of watching three teens battle a zombie inside the barn, the lackadaisical Uncle Fester shows up with his stupid grin and tells me, “if you think this is bad, just wait until you see what happens next.” Of course, Snake didn’t have Uncle Fester stop there. The film reel just had to break in the middle of the interruption (see Gremlins 2 ) and rewind the timeline of the film. Was it worth it Snake? I hope so, you sorry bastard. Do I have to remind you that pulling the audience out of the film’s digesis to tell us a scary part is coming up sucks all the fun out of being scared? Damn you, Snake…damn you straight to hell!

All in all, The Roost is a fun horror movie. That’s right; I said fun – not scary. Because my twisted sense of humor was too busy laughing at Uncle Fester and the bumbling zombies, the movie never actually frightened me enough to make me jump, scream, or wet my pants. In other words, if you are looking for a good movie to scare the crap out of you this Halloween weekend, The Roost probably isn’t going to do it for you. There are plenty of other horror classics that are 100 times scarier than this one. However, if you are in the mood to be entertained – not necessarily scared – The Roost just might be what Pat ordered.