If a ticket buyer were to stumble into a theater showing Ti West's The House of the Devil without knowing what to expect, they might think they had come across a long-lost Tobe Hooper film from the early 1980s or at least a film from a lesser-known director of the same era. Ti West has made a horror flick that is not meant to merely be SET in the early 1980s but is designed to feel like it was actually produced back then. Everything from the font of the opening credits to the cheesy synthesizer score feels like a 1980s horror film that has been pulled from the vaults. (Almost everything. The themes of the film – cults, paranoia, Satanism – actually have more in common with horror of the late 1970s, but that's a quibble from an intense genre fan that probably won't bother too many viewers. Most of the genre had moved on to slasher flicks by the 1980s.) West is a director clearly inspired by the films of his youth but he's a bit too in love for his own good. There is a lot about The House of the Devil to admire but West ultimately likes the slow burn a bit too much and it fizzles out.

Gorgeous, charming, straight-out-of-the 1980s newcomer Jocelin Donahue stars as Samantha, a college student who answers a flyer ad for a babysitting gig. Here's a hint to all who apply for a babysitting gig – if you get to the interview and discover there's no baby, stand up and walk out the front door while you still can. It turns out that the creepy couple who placed the ad (Mary Woronov and the great Tom Noonan, stealing the film with just a few scenes) are planning an event for the once-in-a-lifetime lunar eclipse that night and just want someone to hang around their big house that night in case something goes wrong with grandma upstairs. Samantha's best friend (Greta Gerwig) senses something is wrong but the money is too good for Sam to turn down and so she bounces around the house, obliviously dancing to the tunes on her gigantic Walkman, and looking generally cute for about an hour while the audience waits for the film to live up to the title.