The Roost (tbc)
- Run time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Genre: Horror
- Release date: 1st January 2005
- Starring: Tom Noonan, Karl Jacob, Vanessa Horneff
- Directed by: Ti West
- Official Website: www.theroostmovie.com
Plot Synopsis
Every once in a while a debut director comes along you know is destined for greater things. The genre is famous for unearthing the talents of such Hollywood luminaries as Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi, and now you can add Ti West to the latest 'ones to watch' list including Neil Marshall, Alexandre Aja and Eli Roth.
The Roost is an extraordinarily assured piece of work taking a highly conventional set-up and through West's imagination, invention, perfect timing and deft control turns it into a tension-filled scare workout. Both a self deprecating homage to classic B movies and emboldened by a morbid sense of gallows humour, West's grainy exploitation gem finds four friends stuck in the middle of nowhere after some car trouble. Although a seemingly deserted farmhouse with a spooky barn seems to be their only choice of sanctuary, they soon find themselves in some deep guano as the terror-filled night turns up one dead body after another. Tom Noonan plays a Crypt Keeper-type TV horror host in the black-and-white wraparounds to supply extra jabs in the gut. With expert sound design and gore used only when vitally necessary West only allows us to see what he wants us to see in the true Hitchcock tradition. Throw The Evil Dead in with the Hitchcock-tail of subtlety and suspense and right off the bat you have The Roost, the genre discovery of the year.