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Director: A.D. Calvo

Genre: Horror

Rating: R

Cast: Inbar Lavi, Steven Grayhm, Eddie Hassell, Holland Roden

No one knows the real horrors that occurred 60 years ago in Redding House Asylum; all evidence was incinerated in its crematorium. But when a group of medical students break into the shuttered hospital, they literally stir up the ashes of the damned. For the mentally unstable new girl on campus (Inbar Lavi of MTV's Underemployed), it will force her to the edge of sanity. And for those who accidentally ingested the cremains of an infamous serial killer, their nightmare of madness and murder has just begun.

"House of Dust" has one hell of a start to it. The film opens in the 1950's. It shows a doctor and his aids giving lobotomies to several mental patients and then they are burned alive in a crematory furnace. Like I said this is a great start to the story but sadly the rest of the film did not live up to the opening.

After the opening scene the film switches to modern day where we meet a group who are going to school across the way from the now shut down mental asylum. When the group decides to break in to the old hospital and explore they get possessed by the inmates spirits, except for Emma, the new girl on campus because she wondered off alone thinking she heard something. Emma has some mental issues of her own, more is explained in the film so I will not ruin it here.

I am sure you can tell where the film goes from there which ended up being a mix of good and not so good to me. Let me start with the good first. I thought the young cast did a really good job playing their roles especially Inbar Lavi who plays Emma, Inbar is really convincing as the unstable, very frightened Emma. Another thing I thought the film did well was its ability to create a good amount of suspense as it moved a long. There were also some pretty creepy moments as well.

Now on to the not so good things about the film. The most obvious one is the lack of on screen carnage after the opening scene. The killings after that were all off screen. I also did not really care for the film's final scene but it is an open ending so it looks like there might be a second film.

"House of Dust" is a decent horror film but I thought it could of been so much better. Still if you like your horror I recommend checking it out. The film is available on DVD with no Special Features which I found disappointing since it is inspired by true events. I was hoping the Director might talk about the events that did indeed inspire the film. You can order the DVD HERE.

Released by ARC Entertainment

** 1/2 Out Of *****