The Roost (2005)

Genre:  Creature Feature, Zombie
Director:  Ti West
Country:  USA
Availability:  DVD

The night that I finally decided to watch The Roost I was feeling particularly unenthusiastic about horror movies. I've watched a lot of terrific horror lately - The Theatre Bizarre, The Cabin in the Woods, Chernobyl Diaries, The Divide, The Loved Ones - and the burden that comes with an overabundance of unique and original horror movies is that it heightens your cravings for something great, while at the same time lowering your tolerance for the standard, mediocre drivel.

I'd started my night out on Kill Katie Malone, a thoroughly boring and sophomoric effort in horror making, and was on the hunt for something reinvigorating. I scoured Netflix Streaming and Amazon On Demand and Redbox and remained uninspired. Sometimes the time it takes me to choose a movie is time I could have spent actually watching one. But the pleasure that comes from a quality horror movie night is the very reason that my excitement for this genre exists. And on certain nights, when my mood is finicky and my expectations are high, the process of picking a movie takes time.  

So I abandoned my online queues and lists and revisited my personal collection of DVDs. This special mood I was in required that I watch something new but I was out of ideas so I thought my collection might inspire something. That's when I saw, The Roost. I'd purchased The Roost a while ago, spotting it at CD/Game Exchange for only $1.00 and knowing it was Ti West's first film there was no question that it was going home with me. But it's been sitting among my DVDs, unwatched, for nearly a year. When I initially brought the movie home I looked up reviews and watched a trailer. The reviews were poor and the trailer looked kind of... bad. So there it sat.

But when I saw it there, all unwatched and mysterious, there was no hesitation - I put it on.

Right from the beginning I knew I was in for something special. The movie opens in black and white with a slow panning across fake tombstones and cardboard cutout trees, finally setting on a charcoal sketch of a spooky mansion on a hill. It cuts away and we are then introduced to an imposing man dressed in a suit and holding a lantern - The Host of Frightmare Theatre!

When I was a kid I used to stay up late and watch  Elvira's Movie Macabre and Joe Bob Briggs's Drive-In Theater. They would introduce b-movies and make commentary on kill scenes or nudity. It was hilarious, it was raunchy, and the movies were always b-movie gems. So when The Roost opened as a macabre TV show that introduces b-movies, I was in love.

The score that runs throughout the whole movie is reminiscent of classic b&w horror with a touch of the '70s and '80s more energetic style.  And once we begin watching The Roost you'll notice that the film is grainy, like you're watching an old movie on VHS with occasional tracking blips. This is the third Ti West movie I've seen - the writer/director that gave us House of the Devil and The Innkeepers - and it made me realize that the man has a definite style that has been apparent in all of his movies. For one, he loves a silent slow-moving scene. There are moments of glacial pacing and spatial silences that fill the flashlight illuminated darkness. For two, he loves flashlight illuminated darkness. He also seems to pick very "real" kind of actors. That is to say, no one is too beautiful and they all seem to have a raw, basic quality about them that is instantly relatable. The characters are never your cliche "slutty blonde", "grounded brunette", "asshole jock" which are the standard horror movie fodder. And one of his strongest attributes as a filmmaker is his true understanding of the genre. He not only knows how to build tension and create atmosphere, but he has an eye for framing, in almost, dare I say, a Hitchcockian way.

However, for as creative and original as The Roost may be, it still maintains a b-movie, low budget feel with cheesy looking special effects, mediocre acting and over-the-top moments. Combined with its rather straightforward plot and slow pacing I fear it's not a movie that a broad audience would appreciate, and perhaps instead one that only a true connoisseur of the horror genre will love.

4 out of 5 stars