Girl House

Ever since Wes Craven's "Scream", horror movies have desperately tried to be self-aware, expecting that the audience knows exactly what's going to happen next. "Girl House" takes the idea of a generic slasher and makes every unbelievable cliche we've ever seen in a horror movie actually work.

College student Kylie Atkins needs money, and what better way to make easy cash than to strip in live webcam shows on the web, right? She is invited to live in the titular Girl House, a hidden house in the woods filled with cameras, sex toys and a cast of Gossip girl-esque strippers who are paid to live their lives knowing that men all over the world are masturbating over them. It's all fun and games until one of the websites users, Loverboy, develops an obsession with Kylie that turns deadly.

The opening scene of the film bombards us with sexual imagery and is followed almost immediately by the brutal murder of a young girl. It's made very clear early on that nothing in this movie is going to be held sacred. Upon being introduced to the characters, (most of which are engaging in some form of sexual activity) the movie slows down a little and lets us ease into the premise. There's some pitch black humor throughout the movie, and it works perfectly.

Once the horror begins though, things take a very strange turn. The movie begins with a polish reminiscent of big budget slashers like 2009's "Friday the 13th", but the content is closer in style and substance to something from an underground French gore film. The killer dons a downright creepy mask, stalking the girls throughout the house, using the cameras to his advantage, and kills them in an usually gory fashion.

The main thing that stuck with me through this was the sheer brutality; Loverboy is a brute, smashing down doors, bashing in heads and grunting as he hunts Kylie and her stripper friends. It's rare for a movie with such high production values to have such a savage killer. Admittedly the gore wasn't as graphic as the first few scenes makes us think it will be, but it was just graphic enough to make each kill satisfying.

Even more notably, the "Final girl" slasher trope is still here, only this time she's a down-on-her-luck stripper. Kylie struggles with justifying her place in the Girl House, and when she finally feels comfortable, things go very wrong. Whether or not characters had sex though, didn't affect their chances of survival at all.

It was surprising to see a movie use the whole " Be careful on the internet" angle successfully. After seeing movies like "Unfriended" and "Smiley", I thought the genre had no hope, but "Girl House" is probably the finest example of internet-horror out there right now.