"The Night House" is a Tense, Disturbing Good Time

 

I love a good horror movie. Being scared is a universal feeling, and when done right, scary movies can be both entertaining and cathartic. That rampant rise in tension and that fall of release is like a roller coaster experience but from the comfort and safety of a cinema, and I love it. Sometimes it doesn't always pan out; sometimes horror movies simply aim to generate their scares from predictable jump-scares and common horror tropes. Story is often sacrificed for cheap scares in those moments, and that's okay - there's a place for those, for sure. However, when tension, tone, atmosphere, and unpredictable, subverted expectations are used to generate those awesome scares, that's when you've got something worthwhile - in my opinion. Director David Bruckner's new movie The Night House is one that I was really juiced to see just from the trailers, and it delivered an experience that was not only worthwhile, but truly spooky.

The Night House follows a widow named Beth (Rebecca Hall) who we meet coming home after her husband's funeral. She's living in their custom-built lake house, alone, and is faced with the daunting task of moving on after such a terrible loss. But, when strange occurrences begin to take shape in the house, Beth's search for answers leads her on a terrifying journey to uncover her husband's disturbing secrets, one of which involves building plans for their house, but in a reverse format. This is a movie about grief, and how that grief is manifested. It's also got other creepy elements that I won't divulge here, but know that there's more than meets the eye with Beth's journey throughout the film. The movie is scary, mainly because it's so tense. That tension is built over a slow-moving narrative. It's a slow-burn, and my body was sore after watching this because I was nothing but nerves throughout.

Save for a few supporting roles, this movie is mostly a one-woman show featuring Rebecca Hall, and she knocks it out of the park. Beth is a character that, again, is grieving. So, some of the choices she makes - mainly in confronting the weird and unexplainable things that occur - make sense, because she's a woman that is emotionally unhinged. This works really well as a storytelling concept, because as an audience member you're left wondering what is real and what isn't. This, in turn, adds to the tension, building and twisting until the final release at the end. Hall's performance is really, really good, and it manages to work extremely well as the main focus of the film. The rest of the cast is good, but truthfully, this movie is about 90% just Beth. To pull something like that off effectively, you need quality talent, and Rebecca Hall delivers in spades.

David Bruckner's direction is really great as well. The way he uses the camera is creative at times, playing with shapes and light in order to create moments where you think that maybe something is there that might not be. The uneasiness this creates feeds into the overall experience. Again, there aren't a lot of your typical jump scares, but there are moments where you would expect something to happen, but nothing does, only to then occur when and how you least expect it. The creepy score helps this as well; it's subtle but extremely effective in highlighting those intense moments. The film is unsettling, and I think of all the adjectives I could use to describe this film, "unsettling" is probably the best. As a horror movie, it works really well because it doesn't lean on typical tropes, bringing in fresh new ways to deliver the scares. I found it very effective and an overall entertaining experience.

This movie was one of the many that got booted off the 2020 schedule due to the pandemic, and I'm glad it's finally out this weekend for people to enjoy. If you're a fan of scary movies and get a chance to see The Night House, I highly recommend you take that opportunity. It's emotionally tense, disturbing, creepy, and a true blast to experience on the big screen. Big thumbs up here.