House started out as a book co-written by best-selling authors Ted Dekker (of the Circle Trilogy) and Frank Peretti (from Piercing the Darkness). In it, Jack and Stephanie are headed to couples counseling when they are diverted and trapped in a house with another troubled couple. They must deal with the evil within their own hearts in order to survive.
Directed by Robby Henson, the movie adaptation of House did not do well in its first weekend in theaters. It opened 24th at the box office in 363 theaters according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. House earned $329,836, or $909 per theater, and was even beaten by Bill Maher's Religulous which came in at #20 in its sixth week. Fireproof, starring Kirk Cameron, came in 13th in its seventh week earning over $1.5 million.
Todd Hertz, over at Christianity Today Movies, wrote a great review of House which you need to check out. He thought the book's narrative was "heavy-handed" but that a faster paced movie could really make an impact. The premise of a horror film where the penalty for the characters sins is their death but someone comes in and pays that penalty for them is very Biblical and powerful. Hertz says the movie is hurt by some of the director's decisions including "a lot of MTVish fast-forward and quick-cut devices that make it very hard for the terror to settle over the viewer". Also, the salvation climax is faster paced than the book but too fast, barely long enough to allow the audience or characters to realize "why or how they had been saved".
At the same time, Hertz says that Henson has shown significant improvement over his two previous adaptations - Dekker's Thr3e and Peretti's The Visitation.
