The Night House

Rebecca Hall gets spooked following the mysterious death of her husband.

I suppose if you are making a horror film, then you have to include elements that are impossible to omit. Beth, the protagonist of The Night House, played uncompromisingly to the hilt by Rebecca Hall, is dragged through the mill by all the usual scary elements. She arrives back home at night (of course) to the waterside house that Owen, her architect husband of some fifteen years, had built for them. Even without the brooding darkness she is already spooked because Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) had recently committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

She drinks, getting blotto on brandy, goes to bed but is apparently woken up by strange sounds around the house and begins to see, or thinks she sees, shadows on the wall. Is she still asleep, is she dreaming, is she imagining stuff in her big dark house on account of her drinking? Or is she being haunted by a poltergeist?

The screenplay by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski gradually builds to a point where neither she nor we really knows what is going on. Beth is an anti-heroine, behaving badly to most people such as her mother, her fellow teacher Claire and her neighbour Mel. Still, she's entitled to be in pieces as she discovers things about her dead husband she did not know, even after fifteen years – a suicide note, a photograph of a woman who resembles Beth and some strange drawings. She begins to question whether she ever really knew her husband.

Director David Bruckner collates all these elements in an effective way that keeps his audience guessing. Are Beth's associates to be believed? Can we trust her mother, her friend, her neighbour? The jury is out until the finale which fields more thrilling uncertainties. There are good if suspect performances by Sarah Goldberg as Claire and Vondie Curtis Hall as neighbour Mel, while every other character is played as if they have something to hide. As a competent horror movie, The Night House ticks all the available boxes.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Vondie Curtis Hall, Evan Jonigkeit, Stacy Martin, David Abele, Christina Jackson.                                          

Dir David Bruckner, Pro John Zois, David S. Goyer and Keith Levine, Screenplay Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, Ph Elisha Christian, Pro Des Kathrin Eder, Ed David Marks, Music Ben Lovett, Costumes Samantha Hawkins.

Anton/Phantom Four Films/Searchlight Pictures-Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
107 mins. USA. 2020. Rel: 20 August 2021. Cert 15.