Review: Havenhurst

(teaser-trailer.com)

Havenhurst is about a woman who moves into an apartment complex for recovering addicts. Once moved in, she notices suspicious occurrences and the frequent disappearance of tenants, including her friend who lived there prior. The movie stars Julie Benz (Dexter) as main character Jackie, Belle Shouse (A Million Ways to Die in the West) as the foster child of fellow tenants, Sarah, and Fionnula Flanagan (The Others) as landlord Eleanor.

Havenhurst plays out like a poor man's Saw. Like Saw, the deplorable residents of Havenhurst have set rules to maintain their stay in the gothic apartments. Unlike Saw however, Havenhurst offers none of the twists and turns that make the gore franchise so effective. Easy to figure out but never so blatant to be intentional, the plotline of this film seems to believe that it's leading viewers on a much more twisted path than it actually is. The basis of the film is simple- tenants can't fall back into their addictive ways or they'll be "evicted." Feel like that was a spoiler? Well, Havenhurst doesn't ever try that hard to hide this fact. In fact, the only thing steering audiences away from this inevitable outcome is weird intersections of potentially supernatural events. These are never fleshed out though, and ultimately fall to the wayside.

There are however, a few saving graces in Havenhurst. For one, the dense and lush surroundings that make up the apartment complex are unbelievable to look at. Lush and intentionally dense, the stuffy and dimly lit rooms of Havenhurst Apartment Complex seem like something out of a Guillermo Del Toro movie. This at least, makes the movie watchable.

Then, there's the acting. A huge, surprising victory for Havenhurst is the fact that, for an indie movie with a small, nearly missed release, the acting is way better than expecting. Even supporting characters like the random fellow tenants are above average, even if their storylines get a little melodramatic. For stars Benz, Shouse and Flanagan, their characters' ability to pull through some of the murkier parts of Havenhurst is noteworthy. Benz in particular, is a strong addition to horror's long history of empowered female characters. She stands out and is by far the movie's best takeaway.

Had Havenhurst been released in the early 2000s, it would certainly be more noteworthy. But, for a movie released in 2017, its plot and characters are too recycled, too practical to stand out past a made-for-TV feel. Havenhurst is interesting without ever being much more than a basic and plain endeavor. It's a shame because as noted, the cast is strong and deserves more than what they were given. The Saw-in-an-apartment-complex Havenhurst needed more suspense, more of a twist or even just better scares to be better than it was. I give it 4 stories of an apartment complex out of 10.