Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

That started in a hotel wing boarded up with bricks

The priest was a mighty righteous man,

The cop was brave and sure

Nine detainees woke up that day

With their heads all in a whirl

Their captor talked and told them that

Just one of them would live

And to that one, a bag of cash

He promised he would give

(He promised he would give)

The people lost their s**t real quick, committing felonies ...

With Jay the cop

The Dennis-Hopper priest

The cross dresser ... and his wife,

The angry black man

And the rest ...

Here in "The House of Nine."

+++

Since covid revealed that we're all one mask-mandate away from turning on each other like Walmart bargain hunters on Black Friday, I've learned not to say, 'people would never actually behave that way.'

Still ... I don't think these people (who, after all, had food, shelter, bathroom facilities, wine and CDs) waited ten hours before they started offing each other.

We're supposed to believe that extreme conditions pushed them to the brink and caused them to act out in ways they wouldn't normally. Sure, the stress of waking up in a strange place and realizing there's no way out would be tough. But as I mentioned, their basic needs were taken care of. And there was no external threat. No monster. No storm. No war. No demon.

To make matters worse for the viewer, the characters are cartoonishly one dimensional. Rather than write nuanced personalities and backstories for each of them, the director relies on music-video montages to get us to connect with them emotionally. Maybe so we'll care about who survives? (Spoiler: it's the one you half-heartedly wanted it to be, despite thinking they'd been eliminated).

In any case, doesn't really work.

We're never really shown how much times passes for the 'castaways' but it feels like no more than a couple of days. That's how long it takes for randomly selected, normal people to kill each other.

Good to know.