I don’t normally review horror movies, but this one was done by one of us. A fellow YouTuber, a fellow social media person. I’m nowhere near ranked as high as she is, but House on Eden is KallMeKris’s debut as a writer and a director, and if you’re into horror movies, I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised by this one.
It’s funny, I actually discovered her on TikTok years ago. She has this thing where she’s a little kid and she’s also her own mother, and she does this whole double acting bit. It’s brilliant, it’s very creative, and that’s really what got me into her. Over time she made the shift over to YouTube, at least from what I was watching, and into different long-form stuff. Then recently she got married.
My daughter and I found out during the pandemic that we both liked her. I’d be watching something, she’d be watching something, and she was like, “Oh my gosh, you like KallMeKris?” I was like, “Yeah, I do.” So that’s how we got into her as a household.
Then all of a sudden I see her put a video out talking about her new movie, saying it’s been a crazy week since House on Eden came out. And I was like, what? I researched it, and this is legit. I found it for sale on Amazon Prime, and that’s where I got it.
I bought it because I don’t care whether she has a million subscribers or 50 subscribers. She’s a YouTuber. She lives in our space, and I’ve gotten countless hours of amusement from her content. I felt like I had to, obligatorily, pay for this movie in order to watch it.
It’s an excellent movie.
It Was Supposed to Be for the Fans
In a recent video on her channel, she says this was originally made for her fan base. “It was honestly just supposed to be for you guys, and then it just happened to get picked up by Shudder and then go into theaters, and I was like, oh, people that don’t know us are probably not going to like this.”
It was her, her partner Celina, the other gal she does the horror stuff with, and Jay, her video guy, her producer and editor person. (I called Celina by the wrong name through almost the entire video, and I’m very sorry. Her name is Celina.)
They have another channel where they do actual ghost hunting type stuff. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s legit. Jay even has a bit about it in her recent podcast, where he says that when they actually have stuff go on, this is what it looks like, and when they don’t, the girls just turn it into a comedy video. Ghost hunting, but there’s nothing here to see. And they have a good time with it.
I’ve seen a few of those. They’re a little more long-winded than I’m used to. I used to love shows like Ghost Brothers, which I thought was awesome, and of course Ghost Hunters is the classic for me, back on Sci-Fi.
So House on Eden is the brainchild of Kris, who is Kris Collins. She called up her partners one day and said, “Hey, I want to do a movie. Let’s do this thing,” and they planned it in between all the other content they create. Celina’s the one who found the house online, the listing. And they did the filmmaking thing where you find another house that has the insides you want, and that one just happened to be a haunted house too. Kris says it was already a haunted bed and breakfast, and that there are parts that made it into the movie where you hear knocks or little bangs.
Very smart.
No New Territory, and They Know It
She says very clearly, and as a critic having watched this I’d have to agree, that they don’t blaze any new territory. But what they do is understand the genre they’re going for.
By the way, I’m not a horror guy. I want to make sure I qualify that. If you want to go in my comments and jump down my throat about how I don’t know horror, fine. My father-in-law is a big horror fan, my brother-in-law is a big horror fan, and my wife is a big horror fan. So between Brother-in-Law Know-It-All, Grandpa Know-It-All and Mrs. Know-It-All, I’m very well versed in what horror is supposed to be, or at the very least I’ve come to enjoy it somewhat.
If you’re braced for grotesque horror or psychological horror, this is neither one. There’s a story involved, and once you start understanding the story they’re telling, you appreciate it.
A Horrible Boss, Sold Completely
The one shorthand they use in this movie that I really liked is that they didn’t try to be anything other than what they are. The movie is them playing versions of themselves. I say versions because it’s all hyper stylized. Kris is a complete horrible boss in this, and in real life we know that’s not the case. She’s very well documented as being really kind and sweet, and she even said it was very uncomfortable for her to have to behave the way she did in the movie.
That’s fair. By the way, as someone who likes to watch you, it was very uncomfortable seeing you behave this way. The whole time I’m sitting there looking over at my wife going, “What? Oh, she’s so terrible.” It hurt my heart, because I’m so used to the “you can call me Kris” and “you look great” of it all. You know what I’m saying.
Seeing her in this light really showcased her ability to act, because she sold it. She sold it so much I was uncomfortable with it. That’s how well she sold it.
Jay, at times, protests too much. He feels very much like he’s trying hard to be this thing. But within the confines of what this is, he’s doing a great job.
Celina also does a wonderful job. She’s an excellent actress. She’s the one who’s sort of medium-esque, in terms of she gets vibes and things like that, which is great. I do believe that’s her character on the channel, and I think on some level it’s her in real life as well. I really liked and enjoyed her performance in this whole thing.
They Justified Every Camera
Because I’m a video guy, and I actually come from the world of film and TV, I thought I was going to be distracted by the shaky cam of it, the found footage of it.
What I love is that they took the time to justify every camera. In a lot of found footage stuff it’s just assumed. Oh, here’s my phone. Oh, here’s this. And I’m going to walk around with a big giant camera for no reason. Here, they’re ghost hunters who are dragging camera equipment around, who all have a camera, and we intercut between their various cameras.
To the point that in the van, Celina forgets to turn her camera on, and somebody has to tell her she’s not recording. That happened in real life. That was apparently real, but it fit within the confines of the movie they were making. My understanding is the situations and circumstances are scripted but the dialogue was not. So the dialogue is very improv, and that’s fine.
Every angle they set the cameras up at felt like a ghost hunter thing. All very found footage, all done very well. That includes the flashback style of some of the footage, when we go to Kris in the store, which is where she sees the thing I’m not going to spoil. I’m talking a lot about this movie, but I don’t want to spoil everything.
She’s Better Alone
You can tell Kris is a trained actress, or an improv actress, or has training of some kind. It’s much like her TikTok stuff, the short vertical stuff where she’s pretending to be different characters. When she’s by herself, her performances feel better. She doesn’t seem like she’s trying to compensate for lesser trained people. She feels like the person who knows how to act, and you really see that showcased when she does her scenes by herself.
I find that really interesting, because she’s having to emote, behave, look around and do things with nobody to play off of, and I don’t believe her more than I do in the scenes when she’s alone. Please understand, I’m not taking anything away from the others.
The Verdict
House on Eden is a six and a half out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. That’s my score overall, in general, as a critic being honest.
You can read a 6.5 as me saying it’s bad, but it’s not bad. It does a really good job. It doesn’t move the needle at all, and it doesn’t ask much of us or, clearly, of the people involved. There are obviously some shortcomings. I’m also not that big of a horror fan. So understand that to me, that’s a good 6.5 out of 10. I’m happy with the 6.5 out of 10.
It is what it is. They didn’t expect it to get a wide viewing, and I hope they benefit from those of us on YouTube who buy their stuff. I’ll recommend you go buy it. This is not paid for. This is not an advertisement. I’m just trying to support a fellow YouTuber who’s out there doing the thing, and who we’re really proud of.
When Chris Stuckmann’s movie comes out, Shelby Oaks, I do intend to watch that and review it too, again in support of fellow YouTubers who are out there doing a thing.
Are you familiar with KallMeKris and her channel? Have you seen the movie already, or parts of it? And what do you think about YouTubers finally making that jump, taking their cachet as creators and turning it into broader entertainment? Should that stuff live solely on their channels, or is there a world where we can actually stretch out the way Kris has? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
