Indie thriller ‘House of Last Things’ to screen at West Slope Library

Walking the quiet, hilly streets of the West Slope and Raleigh Park neighborhoods, you wouldn’t suspect that any of the beautiful ranch-style homes around you are haunted. But looks can be deceiving. In the supernatural thriller “House of Last Things,” director Michael Bartlett transformed his own Raleigh Park home into a place where reality and hallucination become indistinguishable and where the past haunts the present in unexpected ways.

“House of Last Things” stars Portland actor Randy Schulman as a music critic with a dark secret who takes a recuperative trip to Italy with his wife. Lindsey Haun (“True Blood”), RJ Mitte (“Breaking Bad”), and Blake Berris (“Days of Our Lives”) star as the young house-sitters who soon find themselves drawn into a web of disturbing revelations that cause them to second-guess what is real as they lose themselves to the house. Eschewing gore and cheap scares for mood and surreal imagery, Bartlett’s film will linger in the minds of viewers long the credits roll.

To usher in the Halloween weekend, West Slope Community Library, 3678 S.W. 78th Ave., in Beaverton will be screening the award-winning “House of Last Things” at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30. The director, Michael Bartlett, is a patron and supporter of the library, and agreed to attend the screening.

“After all the international festival and distribution exposure, this screening at the library is in a sense a true coming home for our little indie film. I am a relatively private soul, and spend a good amount of time walking between the house where “House of Last Things” was actually filmed and the West Slope Library,” Bartlett says. “I think for many locals [it’s] home away from home.”

This will be an after-hours library event and the doors will open at 6:15 p.m. “House of Last Things” contains adult themes, so youth under the age of 17 will need to be accompanied by an adult. Refreshments, including popcorn, will be available.

For those who cannot attend this special screening, the “House of Last Things” DVD is available in the library catalog at WCCLS.org.

— PJ Bentley, librarian, West Slope Community Library