The Night House Review
The loud jump scares are on the list in David Bruckner (The Ritual)'s small-scale , but never boring psychological horror. Rebecca Hall is Beth, teacher with a spouse Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) ended his life and left her in a dark, secluded lake house that looks like the house on Grand Designs. Like all contemporary Hollywood portrayals of widowhood, there's alcohol (here we're talking about brandy) and lots of scrolling through old pictures on the MacBook until Beth begins to experience strange shit: bangs on the doors as well as a naked phantom floating in the water, AOR music blasting out at the middle of the night.
Bruckner's filmmaking is refined and elegant, evoking the lakehouse with the dread of.
As Beth believes she is at the mercy of Owen as well as is suffering from the aftermath of a past near-death experience to confront — screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski include a variety of bizarre details from Owen's cell phone of a woman that looks identical to Beth and a mysterious suicide letter ("Nothing is going to stop you") as well as an abandoned house on the lake, which is identical to hers and a plethora of creepy-ass plans. Although, in the context of a ghost-cryer, it's difficult to connect the dots.
The film's production, aside from the overuse to use BIG sound effects that create shocks and shocks, is refined, infusing the lakehouse with dread as Hall – a genre staple after The Awakening and The Gift is a step up in the horror. She's not afraid to take on the more violent fragile elements that characterize Beth (there is an excellent scene in the beginning when she reveals her true self and is completely honest to a mother who is complaining about her son's school) and also takes on the more outrageous sequences in the story. A possibly embarrassing moment in which she is taken in by a spirit is quite powerful. Beth is an uncommon horror character who leans into the supernatural, rather than running away from it. Hall is able to play that arc for the full amount it's worth.
