Q: When is a tree not a tree? A: When it's 'The House At The End Of TheStreet'.

It sounds like a horror movie and it looks like a horror movie, but It plays out like an episode of ‘Dawson’s Creek’ or ‘The O.C.’ and ends as a fumbled Psycho variant with a dubious message. It wastes the talents of Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue and annoyed the hell out of me with it’s morality: basically, you should listen to your mum, even if she is drunk, because she’s right - the boy next door is no good for you and all those prejudices of the ‘normal’ townsfolk are well founded. There’s a point where mother and daughter look at a tree and Jennifer asks - “What do you see?” Mother says “A tree.” And that in a nutshell is what this movie is saying. Your viewpoint should be shallow and you will be safe. Don’t go looking for beauty, depth or a human face in the tree as Jennifer does. Don’t try to understand other people. Call a tree a tree, call a weirdo a weirdo, an outsider an outsider and join in with the mob of would-be rapists, bullys and selfish parents because the mob was right all along. It’s okay to ostracise people because they’re from troubled backgrounds, don’t fit in and lower the house prices in your area. You should follow the house rules and you should not transgress.

Jennifer scrambles around like a slasher-movie final girl at the end (actually she looks like Bruce Willis in her bloodied white vest) but it’s mum and mum’s point of view that dispatches the threat. The actual mechanics of how this all happens is clumsy to say the least. I’m still not sure how mom survived a stabbing at the end. Presumably her alcohol levels and bigotry provided her with plenty of padding.