I highly recommend David Bruckner’s The Night House, an atmospheric, psychological thriller with some truly scary moments. It’s a
thought-provoking and different type of scary movie than the usual Hollywood horror fare.
Rebecca Hall delivers a tour-de-force performance as Beth, a high-school teacher, who is dealing with the grief of losing her husband to suicide. She is caustic and angry at her loss and her tension and grief literally jump off the screen. When things suddenly start to go bump in the night in the lake house that her late husband built before offing himself, Beth faces off against a dark energy that is attempting to steal her very soul. The other characters are basically unnecessary and just filler. I would have liked to have seen the relationship between Beth and Vondie Curtis-Hall‘s character more fleshed out.
With doppelgängers, spirits passing through and other horrors, the film is genuinely creepy and has some great jump scares that will satisfy horror fans. However, the ending was far too spiritual and intellectual for the average horror movie goer. While I loved the twist, I fear that the trailer ads will mislead less sophisticated horror fans and moviegoers.
