Available Nationwide On Demand Beginning October 1
On DVD January 7 It’s the B&B you always dreaded, and that’s on a normal day
In D.W. Young’s horror comedy THE HAPPY HOUSE, a young Brooklyn couple with relationship problems (Khan Baykal and Aya Cash) head upstate to a remote bed & breakfast to work things out. From the moment they arrive at The Happy House it’s one disaster after another, and they soon begin to suspect they’ve wandered into a real life horror movie. Events escalate from weird to terrifying as they contend with the house’s batty owner, her imposing son, a moody Swedish lepidopterist, a pedantic English professor, an extraordinarily rare butterfly, the world’s best blueberry muffins, a .44 Magnum, a demented serial killer, and one very strict rulebook.A low-budget absurdist horror romp, THE HAPPY HOUSE is both a celebration and subversion of genre convention. Featuring a talented ensemble playing an assortment of zany characters all confined to a B&B full of cuckoo clocks, the film revels in the uneasy potential of hybrid forms. Playfully defying narrative expectation, often by blatantly embracing the most conventional of scenarios only to subtly undermine them, THE HAPPY HOUSE is part drawing room comedy gone wrong and part surreal nightmare. Much like in Young’s 2010 short NOT INTERESTED, a festival circuit favorite that The Hollywood Reporter called “tension filled” and We Are Movie Geeks described as “a subtle venture into the comedy of the absurd,” suspense and humor converge in memorably unexpected ways.THE HAPPY HOUSE stars Khan Baykal (DUPLICITY, NOT INTERESTED) and Aya Cash (SLEEPWALK WITH ME, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE?), and also features veteran actress Marceline Hugot (ALICE, UNITED 93, FUR), best known for her role as the eccentric Kathy Geiss on NBC’s “30 Rock”.
“A wonderfully droll horror comedy with a memorably weird cast of characters.” – David Noh, Film Journal“Likable. ’30 Rock’ vet Marceline Hugot is indelible as the B&B’s cheery proprietor.”
– Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice“D.W. Young pulls an impressive hat trick with a horror-comedy that’s authentically misleading until a pivotal moment. It runs the tonal gamut from a Jarmuschian portrait of youthful stasis to a comedy of remarriage to a fish-out-of-water sitcom to a satire of contemporary America as an increasingly remote and indecisive country of gun nuts and limousine liberals.” – Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine“With a taut script that blends terror and comedy with a rather shockingly assured hand … The Happy House is chock full of interesting performances and, for those who go along for the ride visually (like this writer most certainly did), this will be a really great and perfectly toned thriller comedy.” – Joshua Brunsting, Criterion Cast
– Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice“D.W. Young pulls an impressive hat trick with a horror-comedy that’s authentically misleading until a pivotal moment. It runs the tonal gamut from a Jarmuschian portrait of youthful stasis to a comedy of remarriage to a fish-out-of-water sitcom to a satire of contemporary America as an increasingly remote and indecisive country of gun nuts and limousine liberals.” – Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine“With a taut script that blends terror and comedy with a rather shockingly assured hand … The Happy House is chock full of interesting performances and, for those who go along for the ride visually (like this writer most certainly did), this will be a really great and perfectly toned thriller comedy.” – Joshua Brunsting, Criterion Cast
“Marceline Hugot is a hoot as the Bible-spouting proprietress!” – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
“Achieves a clever, sneaky rhythm. If the first half ultimately succeeds as a kind of mild-mannered purgatory, equal parts Full House and The Exterminating Angel, it is the second half descent into an honestly involving slasher film that solidifies Young’s quirky little experiment.” – Nathan Bartlebaugh, The Film Stage
“A lot of charm… a relationship rom-com meets the man of your worst nightmare, with a whole group of off-the-cuff-and-off-the-wall characters bounding around the periphery.” – James van Maanen, Trust Movies
About the Director D.W. Young’s previous film, the short NOT INTERESTED, premiered at SXSW in 2010 before screening at such festivals as Sarasota, Provincetown, Vancouver, LA Shorts, Cleveland, and Maryland. NOT INTERESTED was also nominated for a 2010 Casting Society of America Artios Award. His documentary short AMI UNDERGROUND (2009) was selected as the opening night short for Movies With a View in Brooklyn Bridge Park and also screened in Paris as part of Festival Cinérail. Young also recently served as a producer on Peter Bolte’s upcoming feature ALL ROADS LEAD. He made his directorial debut with the award-winning documentary A HOLE IN A FENCE (First Run Features, 2008), which chronicles the changing landscape of a small corner of Red Hook, Brooklyn.
THE HAPPY HOUSE
80 minutes, English, HD, Color, USA, 2012
Written and Directed by D.W. YoungCast: Khan Baykal, Aya Cash, Marceline Hugot, Kathleen McNenny,
Oliver Henzler,Mike Houston, Charles Borland, Stivi Paskoski
80 minutes, English, HD, Color, USA, 2012
Written and Directed by D.W. YoungCast: Khan Baykal, Aya Cash, Marceline Hugot, Kathleen McNenny,
Oliver Henzler,Mike Houston, Charles Borland, Stivi Paskoski
Promotional materials provided by First Run Features