Housebound

First-time director Gerard Johnstone may not possess the wild visual invention of his patron Peter Jackson, but he's ruthlessly proficient at old-school scares.

An extremely confident and promising debut.

The mishmash that results is by turns creepy, silly, inventive, darkly funny and, at one point, mind-blowingly bloody.

If Housebound is ultimately much more funny than scary, it's because O'Reilly's pugnacious performance runs so counter to the genre's usual treatment of women in peril.

Hard to categorize -- horror-comedy? mystery-thriller? -- but lots of fun to watch.

A welcome return to quirky Kiwi horror comedy with a juicy payoff.

This is a silly film, but it has some serious horror/thriller chops.

Definitely worth getting out of the house to see.

There's still plenty to enjoy about Housebound, especially with a crowd.

Covers an admirable amount of genre-friendly ground before winding up with a funny, suspenseful, and kinetic third act.

First-time writer-director Johnstone's ingenious script consistently wrong-foots the audience and shifts from one subgenre to another without ever once losing its grip on the comedic elements. It's creepy, tense and scary.