Directed by: David Bruckner
Written by: Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski
In The Night House, Beth (Rebecca Hall) begins to experience unusual things in her secluded lake home following the tragic death of her husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). As she digs for answers, she begins to discover his dark secrets.
This isn’t a traditional haunted house movie, which I love. While it does lean toward the more supernatural side, it has its own unique lore and way of conveying it. I’m a sucker for a classic ghost story, but I appreciate that this movie is a supernatural horror movie that doesn’t feel like any other I’ve seen (while still managing to scare me several times). This is mostly achieved through creative camera work and lighting; there might have been some CGI, but if there was, it was so subtle that I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a special effect or a cleverly composed shot.
The cast feels just as sparse as the special effects, but it’s still strong, especially its lead. Rebecca Hall is often the only one on screen throughout the movie, but she’s so engaging, and she does some truly impressive physical acting. The other stand-out performance comes from Vondie Curtis-Hall as Mel, Beth’s kindly old neighbor; he comes across as genuinely warm and likable while still showing hints of something potentially dark just below the surface.
My only gripe with The Night House is about the ending. Firstly, it feels a little heavy-handed. The evil entity throughout the movie is clearly a metaphor for Beth’s depression, and while this is handled well throughout most of the movie, the last five-ish minutes hit the audience over the head with it a little too hard, which is extra noticeable when it was fairly subtle up until the end. Secondly, the ending is very abrupt. I generally don’t have a problem with open-ended movies, but after how tense most of this one was, the ending felt, for lack of a better word, deflated.
Overall though, I would absolutely recommend The Night House, especially if you want to watch something scary that’s not bloody or gory. The cinematography is beautiful, the performances are excellent, and the suspense is high throughout the whole movie. It’s a shame there hasn’t been a ton of advertising for this one, because it’s definitely worth checking out.
Have you seen THE NIGHT HOUSE? Well, what did you think?
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Great review Laura! I’m still fairly new to the horror genre but I love finding movies that are different to the norm and this sounds like one of them.
Thanks! 🙂 I’d say if you’re new to horror, this is a good one to check out. Plenty of scares, but not gross-out or traumatizing. It definitely doe a good job of doing it’s own thing within the genre too, which is nice.
I’ve read some other good reviews of this movie too, I’m not into the horror genre that much these days. But I do like these sort of drama/horror thrillers, I’ll give this one a watch when it hits streaming services.
It definitely does lean toward the more drama/suspense side of horror, so this one would probably be a good fit for you! Let me know what you think whenever you catch it on streaming!
Hey. Laura, I’m intrigued since you said this isn’t bloody or gory + I love Rebecca Hall, but then I saw the trailer and was terrified even seeing that, not sure I could handle the entire movie, ahahaha. I have such feeble nerves!!
You might actually be okay with this one! I really don’t remember any bloody/gory scenes in it (there’s a slightly violent bit at the end but even then, it’s not graphic and a lot of it isn’t on screen), and there’s not a ton of scary imagery either; it’s mostly the environment that adds to the scares. Rebecca Hall is excellent in this, so you should give it a watch!
I shall try but will wait til it’s free on streaming in case I can’t finish it, mwahahahahaha!
This makes it sound a bit like The Babadok, which I enjoyed. I’m curious about this because of Hall.