The House From...

I've always been fascinated by how places and buildings are often immortalized after appearing in a movie. They may not have been built for that purpose, but after appearing in something seen by nearly everyone they're suddenly known for that. But after filming, these buildings usually remain and go back to their normal uses. If someone's house is used, do the people who live there appreciate seeing their home made famous? Do they appreciate random people coming by to see it, or does that annoy them- and if so, why allow their house to be used in a film or buy it after the fact? Since the inception of YouTube, a number of people have made videos of their visits to such locations but I really felt that a feature film should be made on the subject, and The House From... does exactly that with plenty of famous examples. 

Kevin Smith favorite Jason Lee provides sporadic narration for The House From... introducing the documentary with thoughts about what a home means to most people- it's a place to live your life and that kind of thing. He then asks- but what if your house meant something else to other people? There could have been previous residents, which would be a good subject for a whole other film, but in this case, the question is what if it were seen in a movie or TV show? What if it were in something very popular, and you found people you don't know always coming by your house, taking pictures, staring at it (and you), or even trying to get inside? Well, that's what we'll be spending the next 97 minutes exploring.

Not much time is spent setting up this premise; we quickly jump into our first location in South Pasadena, CA, where 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was filmed. A man casually walks out and tells us how his parents were contacted by the filmmakers, explaining they liked the symmetry of their house, and they allowed it to be used in the movie. Its normal appearance is a bit plain, but for the movie, it was painted bright red with a lot of odd lawn ornaments and such added, making it a memorable part of that movie and setting up Paul Reubens' eccentric character before his big adventure. We get a look at the inside, although most of the interiors of the house in the movie were actually shot on a soundstage which is usually the case- at the time this documentary was shot it was rather empty as he was about to make some changes inside.

From here, we visit several houses scattered across the country- although Southern California locations are often used in films as the studios are headquartered there, living in Northern California myself, that often gets tiresome, and it's a welcome sight to see other places. Some locations are given just a few minutes, while others get long segments, and a few are even returned to. One such location is the house seen in another 1985 movie, The Goonies, located in Astoria, Oregon. It was used as the house where Sean Astin's character's family lived and his friends hung out there in the earlier scenes. Since the movie's release, that location has been a popular tourist spot, though those living there have had mixed feelings about it. It seems those in the neighboring houses, in particular, have not appreciated the attention, and signs in the area ask people not to drive in front of them and to at least respect the residents. We hear a story from one person who was a huge fan of the movie but knew that this was an issue- he politely wrote to the house's owner before his visit and arranged to have a good look at it. Later on we find out that the house was recently sold to a bigger fan of The Goonies and is now going all-in on it, saying he's going to re-create how it looked in the movie and welcome any tourists who come by. That, of course, triggered some anger from a neighbor on the street.

The large house seen in 1990's Home Alone and its 1992 sequel also gets a good amount of attention here. This house is located in Winnetka, Illinois (just a few minutes away from Chicago) and the people who lived there have since moved out but were happy to speak on camera. Nobody knew at the time how popular this movie was going to be, so in the years since it was filmed it has remained an attraction- just a couple years ago I passed through the area and figured I should drive by it just to have a look. I never got out of the car but stopped briefly to take a picture (with a cat looking out one of the top windows), and was amused that on this random weekday there was a group of people outside also taking photos and looking pretty happy to be there. I'd noticed a fence had been put up to keep people at least a safe distance away from it. This documentary didn't get any input from the current residents; it appears they want to have at least some bit of privacy but they also likely knew before moving in that they'd have a few vistors passing by outside. That's had me thinking that famous houses really should be owned and lived in by those who really appreciate their significance; if they don't want people coming by then they should move into a lesser-known house and not have it used for any movie production.

A good example of someone clearly NOT appreciating their famous house is shown in Albuquerque, where the series Breaking Bad was shot. I've never seen this but it has its fans, and the woman living at the house used for the main character clearly does not like people coming by to see it. We get to see her swearing at people to get away from her property and stop looking at it. It would've been great if the filmmakers had been able to interview her here, but clearly she would say no to that if asked.

While I can think of a few famous houses that weren't included here, this documentary still does a good job covering several areas of the country and lets viewers see the good and bad things about living in such a home.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-Ray

The House From... comes housed in a clear Blu-Ray case from ETR Media, on a dual-layer region-free disc. There is no insert, but the cover art has an alternate option on the reverse side. The Java-free disc opens with a short copyright warning and logo before landing on the main menu, a still image with a clip of the movie's theme song playing (a separate menu screen appears when selecting the extras, like a standard DVD).

This documentary was, of course, shot on digital video and looks pleasing enough, though not spectacular. I'm not a fan of using a lower frame rate on clearly video-based material, but of course, many people who actually shoot film and video will disagree with that. The biggest fault visually is the quality of the movie and TV clips used here- they appear to be taken from streaming copies with obvious compression artifacts; clips from Back to the Future are even squeezed. There are also a few video-based clips, including home videos, which, of course, are in a lower frame rate. Documentaries in general aren't really big on picture quality, though. I guess we should just be thankful that this received a release on Blu-Ray.

The back cover erroneously indicates a 5.1 track- This is actually only in 2-channel, and oddly the disc includes both a DTS-HD Master Audio track and a standard Dolby Digital track. It's likely that a single uncompressed PCM track could have been included instead, but like the picture the sound quality here isn't a big thing. What we get is adequate enough for the material, all voices are centered and the location footage appears to be recorded in mono as well, with the only stereo separation occuring during the stock music that accompanies some segments (no popular songs were licensed, but an original song was written for the opening and another for the closing, which is pretty cool.)

The back cover promises and delivers over an hour of extra footage. Here's a complete run-down of what appears on the Extras menu, which includes a "Play All" option:

• Deleted Scenes (HD) A total of seven, some exploring locations not seen in the main documentary (such as houses seen in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Who's the Boss?)
• Premiere at Smodcastle (HD 0:44) Short montage of footage from the premiere showing at Kevin Smith's Smodcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, with patrons entering the theater and a few seconds showing the documentary on a 2.35 ratio screen with no side masking- Shame on you, Kevin!
• Music Video by Tim and Jim (HD 3:00)- The movie's theme song in a slightly different version, seems to have been shot at the house of director Tommy Avallone.
• Petey USA at Home Alone House (HD 1:22) Social media personality Petey USA walks across the street from the Home Alone house, along the same area I slowed my car down to take pictures. He seems afraid to go any closer.
• Matthew Lawrence interview (HD 12:47) Mrs. Doubtfire star speaks on webcam about making the movie and working with the late Robin Williams.
• Indie Pop-Culture Filmmakers (HD 35:21) Low-quality but interesting webcam discussion with the filmmakers talking about various other documentaries they have been involved with. Tommy Avallone's most famous documentary has been I Hate You, You Hate Me, about the general dislike for Barney the Dinosaur, and he talks about how that was picked up by the Peacock streaming service. Streaming services in general are talked about as the main outlets for these types of documentaries right now, and how their success has been hit-or-miss. Physical media is, of course, the best way for these works to be available for the long term.
• A Documentary Idea We Had (HD 7:27) Tommy Avallone talks about how he and his friends made slasher movies as kids using VHS camcorders, and that this would be a good subject for a future documentary. As this segment is also presented in 24fps with clips from his videos presented as such, I would urge him to make sure these clips are shown in the proper 60fps frame rate if this comes to be!
• Thank You (HD 1:45) Tommy Avallone shows off his basement, which is designed to mimic a video store, saying thank you to everyone who bought this Blu-Ray.
• Official Trailer (HD 10:53) Spoiler alert- this extra starts with the first few seconds of the trailer, but then Tommy Avallone cuts it off with himself on a low-quality MiniDV camera in his kitchen, saying that he finds it ridiculous that anyone would want to see a trailer for a movie they just saw. He then proceeds to cook rice for his soon-to-be-home-from-school son and just sort of talks randomly about his recent work. One of the most unique extras I've had the pleasure of watching, although he seems to assume few, if any, people will actually watch all of this.

This documentary obviously didn't have the biggest budget, but it was still a blast to watch. For me, the documentary could have gone on for several more hours, so the extras were a good way to include a bit more. It was enjoyable to see perspectives of homeowners who both did and did not appreciate living in famous houses; again, I would simply suggest anyone who does not want that kind of attention simply not buy a famous house or allow their present one to be used in a film. Ideally, true fans of those films should be the ones living there. The technical quality of this Blu-Ray isn't everything it could have been (mainly, higher-quality movie clips should have been used), but I'm still glad it was issued on Blu-Ray rather than standard DVD. Recommended.