House at the End of the Street - 2 1/2 stars

A mother and daughter move to a new town and find themselves living next door to a house where a young girl murdered her parents.  When the daughter befriends the surviving son, she learns the story is far from over.  [synopsis from imdb.com]

The daughter, Elissa, is played by Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Winter's Bone).  Her mom is played by Elisabeth Shue.  Elissa starts making friends in her new town and soon meets Ryan.  The story goes that Ryan's sister murdered their parents then ran away, and supposedly she drowned in a lake or something but her body was never found.  When this story was told in the movie, it made me laugh out loud.  Really?  The killer's body was never found?  Could this mean that the killer is still alive, and will show up before the end of the movie???

Many people in town believe that the sister, Carrie Anne, is still alive and living in the woods.  Well, we learn pretty early on that she is still alive (so this really isn't a spoiler).  Her brother Ryan has been keeping her locked up in the basement ever since the murders.  She's still crazy and he has to keep her sedated.  So we know her brother is kind of messed up too.  I understand that he feels sympathy for his sister and doesn't want her arrested or locked up in a loony bin, but does he really think that living locked up in a basement is any kind of life? 

Anyway, the movie is mostly about whether she will escape and kill again.  She does escape now and then, and this is where the movie tries to be scary.  She is lurking in the woods watching people, and there is a scene where she comes across a couple making out in a parked car.  I wondered if the movie was going to turn into Friday the 13th, but it doesn't go there.

Obviously Ryan doesn't want anyone to know that his sister is locked up in his basement, which makes things complicated when Elissa starts coming over for makeout sessions on the couch.  The movie could have been more interesting if it had done something with the relationship between Elissa and Ryan, but it doesn't do much.

The biggest problem with the movie is none of the relationships are developed well.  Elissa's relationship with her mom is very cliched, with bad dialogue about how bad a mom she is and stuff like that.  No one in this movie speaks convincingly.  The screenwriter has no idea how to write interesting dialogue.  Also, there is no humor in the movie.

I always use Scream (1996) as an example of how a good horror movie should be.  Even when there is no killing or terror going on, Scream is still a good movie.  The reason is the characters are well developed and interesting, and they have good dialogue.  There is also a lot of humor in Scream.  I think I laughed more in Scream than in many comedies.  Everyone who writes a horror movie should watch Scream to see how to do it right.

So why 2 1/2 stars for House at the End of the Street?  I'm probably being generous, but the movie didn't bore me.  I was intrigued enough with the setup that I wanted to see what would happen.  And there were a couple of good twists late in the movie that I didn't see coming.  So in the end, I liked the story but the script really could have used a re-write.