The effects and picture quality in this movie remind me much more of mid to late 1970s horror films than of any 80s films. Besides the music, cars, and tight jeans, this movie would be more 1976 than 1983. Think of late 1970s horror films effects, compared to post 1983 horror films.
shareI have to fully agree with you here. And i was thinking this the whole way through, specially in the beginning. It's much more 70's than 80's!
I'm always right
It takes place in 1981. That year was still fairly 70's.
There were some 80's things around, but I don't think the decade truly took off until around 1983.
Does it state somewhere that it takes place in 1981 -- do we see it on screen? I must have missed that. I assumed it was a few years later, because The Fixx's "One Thing Leads to Another" didn't come out until '83 (I was in college then and it takes me right back).
He also used Greg Kihn's "The Breakup Song", which did come out in '81, but The Fixx thing put me further into the decade.
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Movies are like wine; there's not a lot you truly need to know, you simply like it or you don't.
"Besides the music, cars, and tight jeans, this movie would be more 1976 than 1983"
Agreed, I kept thinking throughout the film that it looks more 1976-78 than 1983, right down to the 70's feathered hair and style of jeans. Also the poor imitation of a 1978ish "Cars" song played near the beginning.
This was the only thing I liked about the movie- I kept on checking to see if it was really from 2009! The hair, clothes, score, even the beginning CREDITS had such an early 80's feel to it! Quentin Tarantino could take some lessons here. It's just unfortunate that there really wasn't a point to this film, especially the ending.
Just sayin'...
Funny, the first thing I thought of when I saw the opening credits was Quentin Tarantino.
shareA lot of this film had a 70s feel to it.
shareThere is a difference between a typical movie from 1981 and 1983, usually the 1983 movie would have an overly keyboarded soundtrack and brighter lights. There was still a slight garishness to make up and hair in 1983 though this all carried over from the 1970's. It's not like January 1, 1980 movies suddenly became different.
House of the Devil, I thought, did a great job in capturing a nostalgic feel. I knew it wasn't of the time period, but it didn't seem overly forced either. I guess it's not technically out of place, but the lead shouldn't have been wearing skinny jeans, and girls were a little more full figured back then in the movies. And if the producers wanted a movie to look like it was from that time period, someone should have been naked at some point. Sorry, that's the way it was back then. If it was rated R, chances were you were going to see somebody naked, and usually it was the lead.
That said, I think they did a great job with it.
Exactly what I was thinking while watching the film. I knew it was supposed to give off 80s vibe, but it actually radiated many qualities of the 70s atmospheric supernatural horror.
share[deleted]
It did have a somewhat 70's vibe in some respects. But the early 80's -- up through 1983 -- were still very 70's in many respects. (There was plenty of feathered hair still around, for one thing.)
I do agree this would fit better in 80 or 81 than 1983 (which the Fixx song indicates). But it's not as out of place as you might think. The quintessential "80's" vibe didn't really start until 1984-1985. Just like the 60's vibe didn't really start until the mid 60's.
^ yeah exactly
people's idealised 'image' of a decade doesn't necessarily correlate with what the decade was actually like. i totally buy that this was early 80's. she was dancing around the house with a walkman for christ sake! e.g. what would people think a movie set in the 90's look like? flannel shirts, acid wash denim, biker jackets all shot in an instagram filter? what about late 90's when everyone had baggy pants, backwards baseball caps and everyone listened to sh*tty nu metal and pop punk?
Interesting point, I never really considered it until I saw your post. But I thought the film was extremely authentic, without it being too much of a gimmick. Aside from a few minor anachronisms, the director and/or designers truly nailed the period, as the early 80s still had a heavy influence from the 1970s. It was an evolution, things didn't suddenly change once the year became 1980. It wasn't until the midpoint of the 1980s that things truly started to look "80s", as we remember it today. Especially in small town America, the clothes, hair, and decorating styles were still very 70s in 1983. If the movie had everyone dressing in 80s kitsch--with lots of spiky hair, day-glo clothes and ripped sweats--it would have looked too much like a joke. To me, this movie really did look like 1983, as I remember it firsthand.
Except for that car alarm that goes off while she's sitting on the steps of the student union. That was definitely not 1983! :)
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There's different ways you can look at decades. Another way you can look at it: Decades unoffically began and end around the 7 or 8th year. It kind of makes sense. It works for just about every decade.
Not everything, but a lot of the first six or so years of the 80's, you could kkind of see in 1978.
Same thing with the 90's. When you look back at the first six or so years of the 90's, you could see a lot of that pop culture beginning and some things already getting pretty big around 1987-1988.
Not everything totally fits, but it probably comes closer than just saying "1980-1990" or "1990-2000".
Here is how I always thought about it:
1950s: 1945-1963 (same cultural mindset throughout, ends with JFK getting popped)
1960s: 1963-1974 (ends around nixon resigning. lotta hippies and psychedelic music in the early 70s
1970s: 1975-1981 (this one is a little harder, but all that disco/punk type stuff is somewhat of a flash in the pan and the decade ends with ronald reagan)
1980s: 1981-1991 (up through the gulf war and the fall of communism)
1990s: 1992-2001 (grunge, the dallas cowboys, bill clinton, pretty much ends with september 11th)
*but for this movie i just kind of viewed it as a mashup of late 70s and early 80s horror. no real particular year.
I agree with everything you're saying here-- your definition of these eras seems pretty accurate as to where it seemed the cultural shifts lay. Also your assessment of the film seems about right-- without knowing, I thought it seemed like about 1982. If I'd spotted a Nintendo or heard something like Madonna, I'd guess more like 1986 because the clothing and hairstyles seemed more like what I remembered from the mid-to-late '80s, but then again I grew up in a farming community which was probably a few years behind the times style-wise. Bottom line, I think this film succeeds on two levels-- it recognizably emulates a specific era (despite arguments, the estimates are mostly within 5 years of each other and I think that isn't worth arguing over due to lack of details in the film), and it is a better film than most of what came out in that actual era.
shareLove your website!!! Thanks!
I find it sad that you're looking this far into the movie...
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