Metacritic reviews

The filmmakers’ decisive presentation is enjoyable enough as an entrée served straight to streaming.

There are tasty moments here, but genre fans looking for a full meal might leave a little hungry.

House of Spoils is an exploration of witchcraft, land, and the respect it should be given, and a study of the perversion and stress of the restaurant industry.

House of Spoils suffers most from genre hybridization. The more explicit horror moments feel grafted on to what is essentially a character study with mystery elements. But as “Speak No Evil” recently demonstrated, Blumhouse no longer signifies low-budget, terrifying horror. The brand has become shorthand for movies lacking clear identities.

The film feels like it's making use of storytelling devices and clichés that have been used over and over again in other stories. The end product is something that is serviceable and easy to digest, but also far too familiar, lacking any major innovations.

Rarely does it ever genuinely feel like a horror movie at all, in fact. Instead, it’s more like a halfhearted feminist kitchen drama, with the occasional “scary” beat inserted under protest, a horror film via technicality of labeling and marketing rather than any particular intent. It wants to be just about anything but.

The result is too serious to ever go full B-movie bonkers and too silly to ever actually scare, let alone say something meaningful.

Despite Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose's best efforts, this fine-dining horror only elicits a few scares. The food looks delicious, and the knife skills are on point, but genre fans will likely want to eat elsewhere.

Jason Blum is a powerful, underrated force in the industry, but I wish he would empower his chefs to cook more interesting horror movie meals.