Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Trapped inside a fortified home owned by a mysterious couple, a young boy quickly learns the true nature of the homicidal inhabitants, and secret creatures hidden deep within the walls.
Wes Craven's gleefully subversive class-warfare horror is one of his most distinctive and politically charged works — a lurid fairy tale about poverty and predatory landlordism that feels genuinely singular in its blend of social allegory, pitch-black comedy, and grotesque excess. The fortified house is a brilliantly conceived nightmare labyrinth, and the film's angry, carny energy sets it apart from peers. Acting is serviceable with Robie and McGill delivering memorably unhinged work, though the child lead is inconsistent. Cinematography is competent but unremarkable for the genre. The ending, while thematically satisfying in its populist revenge fantasy, arrives in a rushed and somewhat anticlimactic fashion that undercuts the film's wilder momentum.