House at the End of the Street

   This film was one of the high points of the Macabre Faire Film Festival at Mill River Manor in Rockville Centre, L.I. last weekend.   It stars Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue as a mother and daughter who move into a house at the edge of a small town somewhere in rural America and Max Theriot as the sole survivor of a murder that happened some years before the beginning of the story.  Directed by Mark Tonderei, a very talented and highly aware young man who is a serious student of the horror/suspense genre it references such earlier films as Psycho, the Bette Davis classic Run, Run Sweet Sue and other previous masterpieces.  The conflict between mother and daughter and the budding romance between the mature yet rebellious high school girl and the darkly brooding yet handsome and sensitive young man next door, who is treated as a social pariah by the townfolk except the local sheriff set a perfect back drop for a meditation on small town intolerance, the stress of being an overworked single parent, and the type of Gothic rural tragedy reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird.  Ms. Lawrence is an established star since The Hunger Games, and Mr. Theriot is quite credibly a new James Dean.   Watch this space for an announcement when the film becomes available on Blue-Ray and listen to In Goth We Trust at wioxradio.org on Wednesday nights from 10-midnight for information about a future interview with the director of this beautiful psychological thriller.