The Night House (2021) Review

 "Everybody has secrets."
-Claire



After the suicide of her husband, Beth (Rebecca Hall) struggles to move on and come to terms with what has happened.  To make matters worse, strange things begin to happen around her house and the lines between dreams and reality become blurred.  Her husband had a secret and Beth is determined to figure out what it was.


What Works:

The strongest aspect of this film is the cinematography.  There are some truly beautiful shots with some great framing.  Some of the early shots do a great job of making you feel like there is supposed to be a second person in the house, but they are gone now.  Later on, the shots become much more frightening thanks to some amazing camerawork and lighting.

The sound design is awesome and actually scared me at times.  I don't get scared by movies very often, but the jarring and overwhelming use of sound made me want to leave the theater as fast as I could, but in a good way.  What makes this work is the movie puts us in Beth's shoes.  She doesn't know where the sounds are coming from and neither do we, so it could be coming from anywhere and everywhere, which is terrifying.

Rebecca Hall is really good here.  Drunk acting is hard to pull off and she does it very well.  Her grief oozes off the screen and fills you with sorrow and dread.  She carries this film alone and does it well.

Finally, there is a scene early on that is incredibly satisfying.  Beth is a teacher and is being confronted by an annoying mom who is upset her child got a C.  Beth ends up putting the mom in her place when she says she hadn't been in class because her husband committed suicide.  It's a dark scene, but it's satisfying to see this annoying character get shut up.


What Sucks:

As far as I'm concerned, psychological horror movies where you can't tell what's real and what's a dream don't need to be made anymore.  I've seen this type of movie made a million times.  While this is a very well made psychological horror movie, it's still a psychological horror movie.  There are a lot of clichés here and those moments made me lose some interest.

The movie also doesn't make enough use of its premise.  When we find out what Beth's husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), was really up to, the movie doesn't do enough with it.  I got really excited to see the whole scope of his scheme and everything he had put in place, but there isn't all that much.  It feels like a missed opportunity.


Verdict:

As far as psychological horror movies go, The Night House is solid.  Rebecca Hall is great, it's awesome on a technical level, and there are some very satisfying scenes.  It does tread into cliché too often and doesn't make full use of its premise, but this movie has still got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good 


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