Losing someone is never easy, especially when you think your relationship with that person has never been better. Grief settles in like a rock, with everyone looking at you with pity when that is the last thing you need. You start to look for answers, scratching every last moment to look for signs of what exactly led that person to take this step, only to find a secret that not only disturbs you to your core but unsettles you in a way that there is no coming back from.
Beth (Rebecca Hall) has just lost her husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) to suicide. He took out a boat from their lake house and shot himself in the head with a gun that Beth didn’t know he owned. This news has upended Beth to the point she has drowned herself in alcohol, trying to make sense of everything. She begins to go through Owen’s belongings while trying to keep her job as a teacher, much to the concern of her friend Claire (Sarah Goldberg) and her neighbor Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall). Soon Beth starts to suffer from strange events around the house during the night, but she dismisses them as dreams. But when she finds a photo of a woman similar-looking to her on Owen’s phone and floor plans for a reverse of their lake house, Beth starts investigating the truth about her husband, only to lead her to a path where she has to question if the man she is discovering is the same man she loved.
All her life, Beth has believed there is nothing after death, whereas Owen argued the opposite. With the supernatural elements getting stronger and her quest to find the truth behind Owen’s death revealing stranger things, Beth steadily starts to believe in the afterlife. One thing to appreciate about The Night House is how it cleverly uses the regular tropes of the horror genre, with a fitting twist that not only surprises you but makes the story even more refreshing to witness. There is a creepy feeling that sets in steadily with perfectly fitted jump-scares along with the use of architectural space inside the lake house. Which makes the story quite deep in terms of what is going on in front of you and what is going on beyond as Beth mirrors in the world of dreams and reality.
The Night House is led by the brilliant and underrated Hall, who gives a stellar performance with the story allowing her to carry it out solo. Hall plays Beth as a no-bullshit character who neither scares easily nor gives up, even if the road ahead is going to destroy everything she ever loved and believed in. There is a bit of humor sprinkled now and then, with one scene standing out when Hall’s Beth has a confrontational scene with a student’s parents who come in to complain about their son’s grade. Supporting Hall in her quest is Goldberg, who plays her concerned best friend trying to keep Beth from going down the rabbit hole. Curtis-Hall plays Beth’s neighbor Mel, who reveals enough things to leave Beth concerned over her search for the truth.
Writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, along with director David Bruckner, set up The Night House quite wonderfully, reeling you in with its ominous aesthetic. The exploration of psychological torment about grief, along with fitting scares, immersive visuals, and a masterful performance from Hall, prove The Night House has more than enough to keep you involved until the end and even after.
