As part of a late-nite horror program on tv, The Roost tells the story about four friends on their way to attend a wedding when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. After looking for help for some time, the group stumbles upon what seems to be a deserted farm house. What they do not know is that the owners of the house were just killed and that the creatures of the night has awaken.
Last night I was about to re-watch the excellent Elvira's Haunted Hills, which I haven't seen for quite a few years, when I suddenly remembered that I had The Roost laying around, and since I hadn't seen that film yet, I went with that one instead. Now, funny thing here is that Elvira features all this goofy kind of horror that pays tribute to the black and white Roger Corman as well as Vincent Price films and classic Hammer horror movies from the 60's etc. And The Roost basically does the same, all least in the beginning/middle/end of the film where Tom Noonan appears as the ghoulish-looking host of a late-night b&w horror show. Now, since I was in the mood for this old horror type of stuff, The Roost did hit right on the spot, right at the start.
I believe that the ghoulish-looking Tom Noonan, as The Horror Host, presenting the film do make the movie look a helluva lot better in the end than if say that movie would've just started right away, without any presentation. Even though it's not very funny, The Horror Host and that whole presentation thing adds a lot of comical atmosphere as well as this old great horror feel to the film. Because the thing is that the film itself is not that special per say, and while it sure lacks originality among a heap of other things, it still comes out being quite the entertaining ride.
 
The story is close to nothing in The Roost where four friends who are on their way to a wedding happens to have some car problem which leaves them stranded in the middle of nowhere (yeah, never seen that one before). They come upon this farm house looking for help but it seems to be nobody at home so two of them go further to look for help while the other two stays put at the farm house. It doesn't take long before the two guys that took a walk comes back with a cop, and from there on, it's full-on horror.
One thing I truly hate are rats, and what's even worse are of course bats since they look similar to rats, only that they have wings as well. And even if The Roost deals with bats, luckily we don't get to see them up-close too many times in the film. They're there though and they're attacking people and that just about enough for me. The whole film basically takes place around this farm house where the cop and the group fall victims to the creatures of the night. It features some slightly gruesome scenes and even though the film looks a bit cheap at certain places, I must say that the make-up and the gore looks terrific. The score is just as irritating as it is good, and while I felt that it was in the way, being just too annoying at times, at other times it worked well with the film. There are also a lot of sound effects used with most of them serving a good purpose. Also the ending might be predictable as hell, but was still very good and made the film deliver.
Ti West proves that you can make a good horror flick on a low-budget, using not too many original ideas, but that still works and does not totally rip off other flicks. I believe that for fans of horror, The Roost can be a lot of fun if you just take it for what it is. It's not a film to take too seriously and while the cheapness of the movie shines through every now and then, it comes out looking quite good in the end.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Ti West
WRITING CREDITS: Ti West
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Tom Noonan, Karl Jacob, Vanessa Horneff
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 80 min
RATING: 6/10
Roost, The Website/IMDB Click here
Roost, The Trailer Click here
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