<Li> Dee Wallace as Landlady </Li> <Li> Lena Dunham as 911 Operator </Li> <P> The film was shot in Connecticut . Taking place in the 1980s, the film was made with 16mm film, giving it a retro stylistic look that matched the decade . Similarly, some aspects of the culture of the 1980s (i.e. feathered hair, Samantha's 1980 Sony Walkman, The Fixx's 1983 song "One Thing Leads to Another", The Greg Kihn Band's 1981 song "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write' Em)", and the Volvo 240 sedan) are seen in the film as signifiers of the decade . The cinematography of the film also reflects the methods used by directors of the time . For instance, West often has the camera zoom in on characters (rather than dolly in as is now common in film), a technique that was often used in horror films of the 1970s and continued to be used into the 1980s . Other stylistic signifiers include opening credits (which became less common in films in the decades after the 1980s) in yellow font accompanied by freeze - frames and the closing credits being played over a still image of the final scene . </P> <P> The United States premiere was at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 25 . It was made available through video on demand on October 1, 2009 . The film was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 30, 2009 . The DVD and Blu - ray of the film were released on February 2, 2010 . A promotional copy of the film was released on VHS in a clamshell box like the ones that many early VHS films of the 1980s came in . </P>

Where was the house of the devil filmed