Review: In disturbing The Night House horror comes from within
The Night House’s horrors
don’t come from chainsaw-wielding psychos or boogeymen in hockey masks assaulting in the dark.
They are born of suffering, tragedy, and the revelation of shocking facts.
As a result, “The Night House” has a deeper, more intellectual resonance than your typical horror film.
At the very least, Leatherface or Jason can be fought.
The psychological horrors in this gripping horror
film leave long-lasting scars on both the protagonists and the audience. Once the lights come on, it’s not a movie that can be simply ignored or wiped away.
Rebecca Hall leads “The Night House” with a stunning performance that ranks among the finest of the year.
She portrays Beth, a high school teacher in upstate New York
who is trying to put her life back together after her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), commits himself off-screen before we meet her.
She is left alone at the couple’s lake home, which he built, where she has nightmares about his looming presence.
AHS Spinoff’s new show ‘will delve into horror’ myths and legends
These images involve a doppelgänger version of their home with everything inverted, which prompts Beth to begin searching through Owen’s belongings.
She discovers an innocent photo of a lady who is not her on his phone.
Her friend Claire (Sarah Goldberg) assures her that there are much worse things to discover on a man’s phone.
But Beth perseveres in putting things together, ultimately tracking a light across the lake and discovering
a reverse model of their home that he was secretly constructing.
The mystery thickens as Beth discovers esoteric artifacts that suggest
Owen was involved in some disturbing activities. Vondie Curtis-Hall, a neighbor, tells her of an affair he saw him having.
As the truth of Owen’s death comes into startling light with a horrific, world-shattering revelation, Beth realizes she didn’t know him at all.
Hall is all raw emotion as she cycles through her character’s sorrow, rage, agony, and finally total dejection.
A sequence in which she is challenged by the grade-grubbing father of one of her kids is excellent.
She’s a force of nature that digs in and shakes
the foundations of every situation she’s in.
Working with a clever script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, director David Bruckner
crafts a suitably frightening atmosphere of dread that tightens around Beth.
He incorporates shocks into the film’s structural structure while never losing sight of Beth’s inner horror and the human horror of grief and loss.
Things that go bump in the night are unquestionably terrifying.
Review: In disturbing ‘The Night House,’ horror comes from within
The creatures that go bump in the night are just the start of the horrors in “The Night House,” as what stays in the mind is much more frightening.
