Product Details

• Actors: Tom Noonan, Karl Jacob, Vanessa Horneff, Sean Reid, Wil Horneff
• Directors: Ti West
• Writers: Ti West
• Producers: Larry Fessenden, James Felix McKenney, Peter Phok, Susan Leber
• Format: Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Dubbed: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Showtime Ent.
• DVD Release Date: October 3, 2006
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000GH3CMK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,725 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "The Roost" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Four friends, on their way to a Halloween wedding, get into a horrifying car accident in the middle of nowhere. Searching for help, they come across an desolate, mysterious farm. Unbeknownst to them, the friends' presence awaken an ancient evil and creatures of the night awaken - and the undead rise. A night of relentless horror begins.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good clean campy fun! August 31, 2006

By Mr. Scary

Format:DVD

I saw this film when it had a theatrical run last year. The entire film is contexualized as a midnight movie feature complete with actor Tom Noonan as a fictional "host" who guides you through the whole movie.

It is not very scary, but if you are looking for an old school 80's style slumber party gore-fest, you can do a lot worse!

The director Ti West obviously has a lot of love for 80's horror and has created an awesome love letter/worthy addition to the genre.

Recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Bats that make zombies... OK call Animal Planet right now.... December 17, 2006

By William N. Brown

Format:DVD

Writer/director Ti West's film "The Roost" is not the best low budget horror film, but it does have its high points.

The film uses entertaining host segments that pay homage to the any number of TV horror movie shows. "The Horror Host" (Tom Noonan) introduces the film and occasionally pauses it to interject his own campy observations. I haven't decided if the "host" segments were intended from the beginning or if they were added to the finished product to stretch it out to a feature length film, whatever the case they add a bit of extra originality to the overall film.

The movie itself follows four twenty-somethings on their way to a friend's wedding when they become stranded after their car hits a bat... yeah well it could happen. Anyway, the group ends up at a remote farmhouse. The owners of the farm have already mysteriously disappeared after entering their gigantic barn. Soon enough the viewer learns that it is the "Roost" of bats in the barn that is responsible. They not only kill and horribly disfigure anyone they come in contact with, but for some un-explained reason the bodies come back to life as zombies. Following usual zombie rules, if you get bitten you turn into one and so it is that the four friends must face the killer bats and several re-animated corpses.

Overall "The Roost" does a pretty good job. It drags a bit at times, but the special effects are surprisingly good for an obviously low budget production. The film doesn't hold any real twists or surprises; if you are familiar with the genre then you can guess where the film is going. That being said, when being taken for what it is, low budget horror entertainment "The Roost" delivers a pretty good amount of bang for your buck.... I give "The Roost" a five out of ten and say that you should check it out and see how it bangs for you! Read more ›

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars What was that? October 9, 2006

By Stacy Shellenberger

Format:DVD

Please consider buying a used copy for half the price/ I wish I would have. Bought it based on the cover and the editorial review. Big Mistake! The cover was far cooler than the movie and the editorial was not exactly accurate and kinda misleading! It was indeed about a group of kids who have (you guessed it) car trouble! That is where the similarity ends. The bats were not awakened by the kids. They were there from the beginning scene and who knows how they got there. I sure don't. If you are looking for a good bat movie there are better ones out there for sure. I thought this one was lacking in substance. And no, i do not mean lots of blood and gore. I'll take that in a movie, sure, but I am not so shallow as to think that is all there is to a good scare. This movie just never gets off the ground and then it's over! No suspense or chills and thrills. Not much really going on with the BATS! And the freaky Egor narrator at the beginning of the movie? What is all that for anyway? He interrupts the movie several times which is just down right distracting and aggravating.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Only one little "er" away from monster chicken hijinx! December 25, 2008

By Craig Edwards

Format:DVD

The Roost (2004) This extremely low budget flick from director Ti West starts off with an old school TV horror host (Tom Noonan, of all people!) opening his show which is going to be showing a movie called The Roost. After a few minutes of the standard horror host shtick, the real movie begins, which sends four twentysomething nobodies off to the boonies for someone's wedding. Before they can arrive however, the car of course breaks down, stranding the quartet (all together now) out in the middle of nowhere! Making their bad night even worse, the farmhouse they go seek help from has a barn full of mutant vampire bats! And the farm's owners, already attacked and killed, are actually a second menace to Our Heroes. Which leads me to one thing I've noticed about low budget monster movies in the last few years: If your main monster is too expensive to have on screen long enough to menace everyone that needs menacing, one fall back is to have your main creature's attack turn its victim into a zombie. That way, if you only have enough money for at most three adequate CGI scenes of bats/giant spiders/cockroaches/snakes attacking plus your big climax , but you have four or six main cast members, you can glop cheap goopy zombie makeup on the first couple of victims and have them knock off a couple of the others so you can save the effects for the climax. And that's what we have here. From there, you can kind of map this one out. Breaking it all down into pluses and minues: on the plus side, it's always nice to see Noonan. There are a couple of nice jump scenes. The CGI on the bats is extremely well done, especially considering the movie's budget.... Then, on the minus side: while the stuff with Noonan is kind of fun, it's also pretty obvious it's there to pad out the very brief running time (around 70 minutes minus horror host). And speaking of that brief running time, it unfortunately takes about 40 of the movie's 70 minutes to get the kids into position at the farm for the bats and zombies to attack. Also, after the movie finally does pick up, one of the horror host sequences (literally) breaks in to the movie and totally stalls the flick out for several minutes. Another problem: absolutely not one second of explanation of where the bats come from or why they are in this particular barn. I know what the filmmakers were going for here; sometimes events just start happening and people are thrown in to them and no one knows what's really going on. Sometimes this adds to the menace of the movie. In this case, however, I'm forced to put it down to sloppy or bad screenwriting. Next: if you can't see the end coming a mile off, get a new hobby. The final minus is that the movie was shot on video, then given a film look in a computer, with added grain, scratches, and even the aforementioned film break, none of which is convincing or adds much to the movie. The reason it falls fully on the minus side is because the filmmakers baldly lie in the credits that the movie was shot on film. No fibbing in the credits, fellas, unless you're making an obvious joke! So, taking a look at the totals here: pluses 3, minuses 6. It's too bad, because with a tighter script that got down to business quicker, and threw out some kind of an explanation; and the really good bat scenes used to better effect, this could have been a neat little movie. As is, not recommended. Read more ›