by A.J.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 3: Haunted House Night
“I think there’s something in my house.”
The Night House is a perfect movie to watch late at
night when the tiny creaks and groans of your house or apartment become
suspicious and ominous. Like the best haunted house stories, it creates an
eerie atmosphere at odds with an ordinary setting and puts us in the same
mindset as the confused and frightened protagonist. I wouldn’t be surprised if
the budget was low, but the quality of the production and craft and scares are
high.
The setting, a quiet lakeside house at the onset of summer,
certainly should be idyllic but for recently widowed Beth (Rebecca Hall), whose
husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), left a cryptic suicide note, a cloud of
foreboding looms over the house. Beth has a supportive group of friends,
especially Claire (Sarah Goldberg) and her neighbor, Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall),
but she spends most of her days and nights at home alone. After Beth receives
mysterious phone calls and text messages that seem to be from Owen, she goes
through his things and finds a picture of a woman that resembles her and a book
on the occult. The most disturbing thing she discovers is a secret house identical to her own except reversed in design on the other side of the lake. The idea
of the ghost of her beloved husband trying to contact her from beyond should be
comforting, but it never feels right and an aura of malevolence and danger
swirls around Beth’s house at night.
The Night House works as a low-key but effective
psychological horror thanks to the emphasis on mood and atmosphere. Director
David Bruckner shows great confidence in the character driven screenplay by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski as well as the talents of Rebecca Hall. This is the
kind of role that some actors would take full advantage of to showcase their total emotive range, but Hall’s skill here is in holding back while
making clear the emotions swirling just beneath the surface. Beth is not the
kind of person who would show what she is really feeling to others or even
herself. Hall is the rare kind of performer who, with the right role, makes you believe you are watching a real person.
Is the haunting Beth experiences a metaphor? Sure, every
horror movie works as a metaphor or allegory in one way or another, even the
schlock movies. However, unlike many recent arthouse or “elevated” horror
movies, the subtext is where it belongs, in the background lurking like a
shadow. Yes, The Night House is a horror movie about trauma and grief
but it is also a creepy and scary one. It is about the search for meaning after
a devastating loss, but that search leads to a spooky secret house and unseen
malevolent forces. It grabs you with the scares and it stays with you because
of the themes and the great performance at the center.
Like the classic The Haunting, (1963) directed by
Robert Wise, The Night House uses sound design and limited visual
effects to build suspense and put you in the same unnerved state as the main
character. You don’t need elaborate effects when you have a red-light filter
and Rebecca Hall. As she makes one chilling discovery after another, The
Night House goes from being a creepy drama to frightening horror
movie.
The Night House slipped under the radar in 2020/2021,
like many films, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and confusion about what films
were on what streaming services, or DVD, or theaters. It is currently streaming
on HBOmax.
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