The Night House

Last night I saw a late Thursday preview of The Night House in an empty theater.  In retrospect, that might not have been such a good idea because this movie is really scary at times and I may or may not have screamed out loud.  Beth (Rebecca Hall) lives in a lake house designed and built by her husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) who has recently died by suicide.  She has a very dark past and her husband's death has clearly sent her over the edge.  She begins to feel a presence in the house, which she believes is her husband, and becomes obsessed with finding out why he decided to kill himself, seemingly out of the blue.  As she searches through his possessions, she finds several books about the occult, a number of pictures of women who look astonishingly similar to her, and architectural plans for a house that is a mirror image of her own which Owen had actually started building across the lake.  As Beth becomes more and more traumatized by the strange goings on in her house, she discovers that her troubled past may have had more of an impact on her husband than she imagined.  This is incredibly moody and atmospheric (my favorite kind of horror movie) and I especially liked the use of light and dark in the negative space in the house.  Shadows and outlines suddenly morph into something sinister and then back again and the effect is absolutely terrifying because Beth is not really sure of what she is seeing and neither is the audience.  I am not usually a fan of jump scares because they seem really lazy to me but there is one in particular in this movie that is very well done (this is where I may or may not have screamed).  The sound design is extremely menacing and it really adds to the almost unbearable tension.  Hall gives a brilliant performance and completely sells her character's grief, depression, anger, paranoia, and terror.  My biggest complaint with this movie is that all of the elements of the story don't quite come together as cohesively as they could have and it is a bit confusing.  The ending is very abrupt and not altogether satisfying after the buildup.  On the whole I did really enjoy The Night House and I would definitely recommend it to fans of horror movies.