House of Abraham: You Have the Right to Die, but not to Change Your Mind

If you ever wondered why some people oppose right-to-die legislation, “Abraham” will help explain it. Nobody would want the state to act like him. Frankly, he is not very Abrahamic. He runs a cult-like retreat for assisted suicide, with the emphasis on his assistance. Supposedly, you can change your mind at any time, but if you do, he and his assistant will change it back in Lisa Belcher’s House of Abraham, which releases today in New York.

Right from the start Dee seems a little different than the rest of the guests at Abraham’s latest final exit weekend workshop. For one thing, she brought a hidden camera. Abraham initially talks a good New Age game, but he can be a bit intrusive. Consequently, Victor, an otherwise sane senior gentleman suffering from a brain tumor, decides to leave. However, Dee suspects he never really left.

In fact, Abraham and his assistant Beatrice give off bad vibes and act conspicuously odd, but most of the guests let it go, because of their reason for coming. Yet, Dee suspects Shannon really wants to live. She only came to be with her suicidal husband, whom she does not think she can live without.

So maybe life is better than death? You think? Yet, House of Abraham will likely be ignored, at best, and perhaps even vilified for making that point. Furthermore, screenwriter Lukas Hassel’s massively creepy performance as Abraham suggests there is something very wrong with someone who takes so much satisfaction from watching death. Again, this hardly seems controversial.

Regardless, Hassel’s portrayal is deeply unsettling, partly because it seems so believable. Think of him as part Peter Stormare and part Lee Pace, with a little Jarod Leto thrown in. It is easy to envision him leading some kind of death cult out of a strip mall yoga salon.

Of course, Lin Shaye knows her way around a horror movie, so she nicely amplifies all of Hassel’s weirdness. Initially, Dee appears to be a fairly familiar muckraking naysayer, but her backstory takes a wild turn, which Natasha Henstridge convincingly sells. In fact, she really keeps viewers guessing down the stretch. Plus, veteran thesp Gary Clarke is terrific as Victor.

House of Abraham is not truly a horror movie, but it is profoundly sinister. It might even challenge some viewers who prefer to think in slogans. Belcher maintains the claustrophobic tension, while slowly revealing the dark corners of human nature. Recommended for fans of twisted cult thrillers, House of Abraham opens today (6/13) in New York at the Look 57.