House of Spoils (2024), directed by Bridget Savage Cole & Danielle Krudy, stars Ariana DeBose, Barbie Ferreira, Arian Moayed, Marton Csokas, Gabriel Drake, Amara Karan, Mikkel Bratt Silset, Barna Illyes, and Imola Gaspar. The film follows a chef (DeBose) who finally gets the opportunity to open her own restaurant, but things quickly go awry when she discovers that the location she purchased may be haunted. Along with various creepy occurrences, she’s forced to contend with an amateur kitchen staff as well as her unforgiving business partner (Moayed). As the pressure in the kitchen rises, so do the supernatural goings-on. This forces the chef to uncover the secrets behind the mysterious estate before they drive her restaurant straight into the ground. 

DeBose is a strong lead and easily stands out as the most capable performer in the film. She always brings a level of authentic attitude and emotional vulnerability that often results in a likable character. It helps that the movie takes its time in the first act to establish the characters before everything goes off the wall. That being said, this does cause the film to feel extremely slow in the sense that it never feels like it’s in much of a hurry to focus on its horror elements. The characters are serviceable and the focus on the culinary world is compelling, but it at best just half-commits to being a horror film. It results in the movie feeling like it can’t fully decide what it wants to be. It all works tonally, but it never satisfies in terms of a given genre because it can’t commit to one. All the supernatural element does is cause tension and confusion within the kitchen, but the thing is, kitchens are already tension-filled and confusing. You don’t need a supernatural element to implement this, and a show like The Bear proves it. 

I suppose the film is somewhat subversive in the sense that it doesn’t fully commit to one genre, but the thing is, it’s less entertaining because of it. This is a great example of subversion being a disservice to a movie. The happy ending is somewhat satisfying in terms of the characters, but it feels like a big “gotcha” in terms of delivering excitement, because, well, there is none. It’s also disappointing that in all the time the film spends with exposition and character development, it never feels interested in telling us anything about what’s going on with the supernatural elements until the very end of the movie. By that time, the answer feels so underwhelming and eye-rolling that it’s hard not to chuckle. 

Overall, this is a unique but extremely flawed movie that never seems interested in delivering on the horror promise of its premise. The longer the film goes along, the more it becomes apparent that it’s not going in any interesting or original directions. I can see this maybe having cult appeal for the feminist chef community, but other than that, it’s an odd experience that’s worse in hindsight than it is in the moment. Therefore, I’m going to try to forget about it as quickly as possible. C-