House Broken

I never thought that the sophomoric idiocy of 'Miss March could be topped. It never occurred to me that there was going to come a time when a movie like 'House Broken' would come out and make me think twice about the zero star rating I gave to 'Miss March.' Don't get me wrong, 'Miss March' was completely awful, but compared to 'House Broken,' it deserves at least a quarter of a star.

I love reviewing movies for a living, but sometimes they really test your patience. Enter director Sam Harper and his moronic 'House Broken.' Seeing this movie makes me want to ask Mr. Harper what anyone ever did to him to make him write such drek and expect people to watch it. This is Harper's directorial debut, but he's had a few writing assignments over the years. I can't believe he was the writer behind one of my favorite childhood guilty pleasures 'Rookie of the Year.' He's penned some other family friendly comedies like 'Open Season,' and the 'Cheaper by the Dozen' movies. Here Harper seems to have realized he's been peddling kiddie humor for the better part of his career and didn't want to miss out on the raunchy fad.

'House Broken' is 91 minutes of fart and poop jokes, with a sprinkling of boner humor thrown in just in case you wanted to become just a wee bit dumber. 'House Broken' isn't without acting talent. Seasoned, decent actors are present like Danny DeVito (This sure isn't 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' DeVito), Katey Sagal ('LOST'), Brie Larson ('The United States of Tara'), and Thomas F. Wilson ('Back to the Future' ). It just goes to show how horrendous writing can sink even experienced actors into a stupor.

One of the biggest problems with 'House Broken' is the two leads, Quinn (Skylar Stone) and Elliot (Ryan Hansen). They're lazy good for nothing brothers who haven't ever gotten jobs, or moved out. Their newly retired firefighting father (DeVito) wants them out of the house so he can enjoy his twilight years in peace. Problem is they don't want to go. Their dad figures that if they won't go, he will, along with all the food, money, and knowledge of how to pay bills.

Quinn and Elliot are imbeciles. They act like two year-olds. I thought the duo in 'Miss March' was bad. These guys give Eugene and Tucker a serious run for their money.

There's really no plot to speak of and no points to discuss. 'House Broken' is just horrible. Not even the appearance of Biff from 'Back to the Future' could save this movie (By the way, have we mentioned the need to check out 'Freaks and Geeks' lately? He's the gym teacher. Go buy it. Now). When the highlight of the comedic experience is one actor humping a massage dummy in order to deal with an erection, you know you've stumbled into something that will easily kill off more brain cells than hard drugs. Please, I beg… No I plead with you to never see this movie.

Careful not to fall out of line when it comes to crappiness as a whole, the video presentation follows right along with the movie itself.

The 1080p transfer with an AVC encode is ugly, almost to the point where you could probably compare it to the DVD version of 'House Broken' and only notice a negligible difference.

Fine detail is almost nonexistent, even in close-ups. Crushing is a recurring offender during night scenes. Blacks are never deep, instead they appear as dull grays. The entire picture looks foggy. The image never comes across as crisp and clear. Source noise frequently pops up as white flecks dot the screen. Colors are dim, and unrefined.

It's just an extremely ugly looking Blu-ray to go along with the disastrous movie.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track doesn't offer much in helping this disc claw its way out of the hole that's already been dug.

The soundtrack is lackluster to say the least. Dialogue prioritization is all over the place. In some scenes people talk extremely loudly, while in other scenes those same voices are muted and music constantly drowns them out. I'm not saying this is really a bad thing, since hearing the dialogue is actually the worst that could happen. LFE is livelier than I thought it would be, with a heavy helping of bass during the rock music soundtrack. Ambient sound is audible, but never engrossing. It's just sort of there, not really adding to the experience.

Terrible. Just terrible.

• Dance Rehearsal (SD, 2 min.) – This feature is shared with a introduction by director Sam Harper. It gives us a glimpse at how the ridiculous Stomp-like sequence was performed.
  
• Interview – Sam Harper (SD, 4 min.) – Harper loves his film way too much. I know it's his first, but still. If I ever hear of another movie that's being directed by Sam Harper, that will be my clue to stay far, far away.
  
• Interview – Thomas F. Wilson (SD, 11 min.) – It's just sad to see this guy doing movies like this now. Biff, one of the all-time greatest villains reduced to this. Unbelievable. Again, go check him out in 'Freaks and Geeks' the guy is just amazing.
  
• Trailer (SD, 2 min.) – In case you didn't get enough 'House Broken,' you'll be able to watch the trailer over and over again.
  
• Bloopers (HD) – The end of the movie does contain a blooper reel before the credits role. Interesting tidbit, it seems like the original title for the film was 'There's No Place Like Home.' That's what all the markers say.
  

I've wasted enough breath talking about this cruddy movie. Stay away. Please. The movie sucks, the video sucks, the audio sucks, the features suck… You get the idea.