WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Fulke Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

mfivejude-1 OK, with all that booze around,why wouldn't they just make Molotov cocktails and blow the doors down, they also had cloth and lighters..all you need that is th e one thing that made this story so incredible, besides the lousy script,plot,actors endless silence with awful organ music. it must have had a budget of $1,000 dollars because no wardrobe expense, location cost(a municipal bldg in Romania? set decoration expenses, unnecessary etc.i'd rather have root canal than see this again also,the title House of 9 is such a bland name for a story that is not about fashion or culinary,which the title seems to suggest,but then again that may have been the intent, to draw people into the theater.even the "special effects" were amateurishly done.what i suppose was meant to depict tears on Dennis hooper,in reality appeared as a face covered all over with sweat. it seems a shame that such a good actor as him,even took on this poorly written part,and also he is the only actor in the film i ever heard of before.

Bloodwank So, nine strangers get kidnapped, stuck in a house and told that the one who gets out alive will receive 5 million dollars. Yep, it isn't the most original or dazzling of concepts, but strangely enough it just about manages to pull off its modest ambitions. Despite the off pacing and some shocking dialogue, things keep moving and really catch fire for a satisfying final block. Style is what holds this one together, director Steven R. Munroe has a great feel for the cold, impersonal setting, the camera roams gleaming corridors and clinically gazes at its mysteries, a sterile and uncomfortable feel neatly offset by the bumptious characters. He is just alright at the dramatic side of things though, like the actors he does his best with the script but he fails in enticing the right vivid performances out of all. Dennis Hopper has a bizarrely pacifying role as an Irish priest, wielding grizzled authority and a gentle wisdom he puts in a good show. Peter Capaldi is occasionally amusing but his role is underwritten and others mostly show their non-acting talents. However a welcome current of off kilter craziness comes from French actor Hippolyte Girardot, really relishing his part he plays it broad and brings great fun, a big bonus to the film. The only part that really didn't work for me was Asher D in a hideously written cliché of a no talent rapper character, he appears not to have any talent to begin with but I'm still surprised that he didn't tear up the script, given some of the bilious nonsense he has to utter. Generally speaking everyone works OK together, some sparks are there and the right gradual escalation of tensions, it's a nicely multi-national cast and though often soapy their behaviour is shot to stylish effect. It just isn't that interesting or exciting and the plot doesn't have enough movement in it to sustain the run time. For the most part the film follows a holding pattern, there isn't all that much going on and some of the decisions made are pretty dumb, it would have been better I think if the film got to the crunch earlier and then either spun out its shenanigans for longer or finished earlier. At least when things finally do explode they do so in fine fashion, bloody, tense and mean, the final 20 minutes or so is rather a blast and does a pretty decent job in making the audience forget earlier longueurs. It doesn't make up for everything, but still left me liking the film well enough at the end. I can't exactly recommend this one highly, but it is alright in my book, worth a watch if the plot intrigues but don't expect anything too impressive. 6/10 from me then

patrick powell Oh dear. House Of Nine, unfortunately, has Euro TV trash written all over it. The giveaway was, as always, that production companies from several countries have their finger in the pie, and the list of producers leads me to believe that oil money is involved at some point. Or perhaps sons of oil money who are a little bored with buying new cars and fancy turning their hand — that would be Daddy's oil money — to film financing. What with most of the world to sell it to, it will most certainly recoup its productions cost and then some. And most certainly some who see it will think it rather good. But it's not rather good. It's rather bad. I picked this up for £3 at my local Tesco seeing that Dennis Hopper starred in it. Well, he does star in it, but his involvement means only that he must have several pressing bills to pay. Another name which caught my eye was that of Peter Capaldi who does such a splendid turn in In The Thick Of It and its cinema offspring In The Loop. Capaldi, too, must have several pressing bills. Oh, and Kelly Brook can't act, or at least acts no better than most wannabes in a sixth-form production. Hopper's 'oirish accent' slips everywhere from Ulster to Killarney and occasionally even Boston, the mad Frenchman overacts so much he probably thought he was on double wages. Briefly, a disparate group of nine people, chosen at random, are locked in a smallish mansion after being kidnapped in London. None is very nice, except Kelly Brook and 'oirish' Father Michael Duffy (Hopper), and it takes less than 24 hours for the lot of them to crack up. The idea is that they should all kill each other, and the last man or woman left standing wins £5 million. Er, and that's it. No other explanation is given, least of all at the end (and the ending is something of a pseudo-significant cop-out) and along the way there is plenty of blood and mayhem. What there isn't, however, is any real sense of horror, any suspense or any slight reason to care what happens. As I say, Euro TV trash to the end. Having comprehensively dissed it, however, I would not discourage you from seeing it if it turns up on your TV channel one night and you have bugger all else to do. But neither would I encourage you. The thought which finally stays with me is: just what was Dennis Hopper doing getting involved in complete cobblers such as this? The pay cheque must have been worth it.

dbborroughs big brother meets survivor as nine people are locked in a house and told only one will live to collect the five million dollar prize.This is a been there and done that in the extreme, with riffs from other better movies stolen. Whats worse then the fact that the film is so derivative is the fact that it changes the rules a couple of times. I hate when films do that since its a clear sign that the filmmakers were not clever enough to work out a clear plot. Clkealry they didn't trust themselves to come up with a fair way to the end. Flaws aside this is still watchable in an undemanding mood-though it is quite forgettable which is good since its not something you'll recommend 4 out of 10