House Of Spoils' restaurant horror is more rotten tomato than Michelin star

As The Bear regularly commits category fraud to pass off its boiling-over stresses as comedy, House Of Spoils throws an extra ingredient into the heart attack atmosphere of high-end kitchens: a ghost. The haunted restaurant horror tosses plenty into the pot, but the half-developed flavors rest uneasily on the palate. In their second film together, writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy (Blow The Man Down) serve up a clashing menu featuring both pulpy campfire-tale marshmallows and the Michelin-chasing dishes of a spiraling, hubristic chef.

That unnamed chef (Ariana DeBose) leaves behind her hardass boss (Marton Csokas) in order to partner with douchey restaurateur Andres (Arian Moayed) on their own place. But it’s not a trendy farm-to-table spot yet. Rather, it’s an overgrown gamble, more likely to be staffed by the baby-cooking crone from The Witch than a refined maître d'. The move to the middle of nowhere is haunted by red, smoky dreams—auguries of boiling, toiling trouble to come. House Of Spoils yearns to add its own spice to these cauldron-bound conventions, just like it wants to comment on the patriarchy (by its central women paying lip service to the culinary boys' club, among other loose threads), but there are too many cooks in its kitchen, each with their own take on what this movie should be. The result is too serious to ever go full B-movie bonkers and too silly to ever actually scare, let alone say something meaningful.

DeBose’s ambitious chef has enough on her plate when she crashes at the rundown country home, a Blumhouse version of the idyllic estate in The Taste Of Things. The property is shot handsomely enough by cinematographer Eric Lin (especially a shed festooned with herbs), who helps the cuisine look just as classy. But food porn becomes a food snuff film as the dark force lingering on the estate reveals one of its powers: The chef’s preps instantly mold, her new garden rots, her fresh loaves teem with bugs. It’s icky enough, even though nothing in the film is as tangible as accidentally grabbing something squishy from the back of the fridge. Stuck with last-minute supermarket groceries, an inexperienced sous-chef (Barbie Ferreira), and an uncooperative specter, a demo meal to impress investors turns into an impromptu Halloween episode of Chopped.

But, of course, DeBose’s character doubles down as the grand opening approaches. Ignoring all the other telltale signs of spookiness—a diary left behind by the venture’s previous chef, who mysteriously dropped out; unexplained door-slamming; shadowy figures on the edge of the grounds—she’s got exactly the kind of one-track mind characters love to lose in these situations. DeBose, flexing her Broadway chops, goes big throughout, dialing into the tackiness of the premise in every wide-eyed reaction to a meal that’s gone supernaturally awry. It’s a choice that makes the few moments of broad comedy stick, but taints the rest. And none of the other barely-sketched characters have anything going on; Moayed is appropriately obnoxious, but never gets to apply his cartoonishness to any end. Though House Of Spoils finally starts having fun in its third act, its presentation of unearned sentimentality is almost as funny as its Raimi-lite imagery.

House Of Spoils is best when leaning into these goofy inclinations, like the idea that an adrenaline-fueled, pissed-off careerist chef would be more fed up than scared when faced with a phantom. Any given character on The Bear would, wild-eyed, try to put their cigarette out on a ghost’s face before fleeing their station. DeBose rarely gets to express this tone, though one exasperated line (“No more spooky shit!”) provides a taste-test of what could’ve been.

But Savage Cole and Krudy don’t seem comfortable deploying traditional genre imagery—the “spooky shit” in question. When ghostly silhouettes slink away in the background, or scuttle past in the dark, or leap at the camera with their hands extended, there’s no elegance in their approach. Rather than being immediately noticeable details that build dread, or unknown threats lurking just beyond our view, they’re more like afterthoughts added into a film that would rather play its story straight.

As House Of Spoils alternates between paranormal mystery and normal restaurant biz thriller, its would-be complexity smacks of indecision. Its overripe themes hint at a full-course horror dinner, while everything else is dripping with the grease of a sloppy fast food order. Either approach would satisfy, but trying for both (while seeming partially ashamed of each) strips the film of a cohesive tone, rendering it bland—ironically, a criticism levied by the film’s own food critic.

Director: Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy

Writer: Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy

Starring: Ariana DeBose, Barbie Ferreira, Arian Moayed, Amara Karan, Mikkel Bratt Silset, Marton Csokas

Release Date: October 3, 2024 (Prime Video)