This off-kilter horror-comedy from writer/director Gerard Johnstone (best known for TV’s The Jaquie Brown Diaries) has something of the suburban satire of Peter Jackson’s Braindead mixed with the eeriness of Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs. When stroppy delinquent Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O’Reilly) is placed under house arrest in her childhood home, she comes to believe that her mother’s tales of hauntings may be more than just small-town madness. Enlisting the help of security-guard-slash-ghostbuster Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), Kylie unravels dark secrets about the house and its grisly history. Swerving between Babadook-style suggestion and outright splatter, Housebound juggles its tonal variations with aplomb. O’Reilly is terrific as the sneery discontent at the centre of the madcap maelstrom, while Rima Te Wiata walks a wonderfully fine line between pathos and aggravation as the long-suffering/insufferable mum whose forced smile is about to crack.
