Ti West is now best known for his X Trilogy—X, Pearl, and MaXXXine-and, bizarrely, this Thanksgiving he’ll drop his Gothic take on A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer. But his breakout was The House of the Devil, and it still rips nearly two decades on. Sometimes lumped into the so-called “mumblegore” microgenre, alongside up-and-comers like Adam Wingard (You’re Next, Godzilla Vs. Kong), David Bruckner (The Ritual), and Joe Swanberg (V/H/S), what sets this satanic panic revival film apart is its fully realized throwback swagger (in name it even references arguably the first ever horror film, Georges Méliès’ three-minute magic show from 1896).
West channels the hysteria he enjoyed as a kid and makes it his own. Plus he assembles a killer cast with Jocelin Donahue as a co-ed in need of quick cash to pay the rent who accepts a dubious babysitting gig well out of town, on the night of a full moon no less, from none other than Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov. What initially sounds too good to be true—one mildly creepy night in a big house with plenty of pizza and TV for more cash that was advertised—absolutely is, and West savors both the slow burn and the inevitable frenzy. Oh and Greta Gerwig pops up, too, in an early role as the tagalong sidekick. The House of the Devil is a wickedly fun, stylish, and twisted ride, a young brash kid-in-a-candy-store filmmaker flexing his influences and having a blast.