The House at Night

... Frightening, Unnerving, Nightmares! The widow of a shock suicide is haunted by dreams and reality from the past, and the present. A towering performance by Rebecca Hall makes all the difference in a story that will leave you scratching your head and your chin but for all the right reasons.

Greetings from Lithuania.

"The Night House" (2020) was a very solid story solidly told. I liked the overall idea - it kinda reminded of some past movies (no spoilers), but it still was fresh and intriguing. Execution was also very solid - at running time 1 h 45 min this movie never dragged and i was caught in this mysterious spooky story from beginning till the very end. Also this just might be Rebecca Hall's one of the very best performances ever - she carries the whole story.

Overall, "The Night House" isn't a horror fest, but it was spooky and overall mood was pretty haunting. When everything was revealed i did appreciate the story - it was intriguing, kinda fresh and very well told. Very solid movie.

For the first hour of the movie I was very much intrigued by this slowly but effectively unfolding story, getting more and more bewildered, just like main character Beth, by the weird and scary goings-on. The photography is great, and beside a nice sinister atmosphere, there are multiple jump-scares to keep you on the edge of your chair. Rebecca Hall carries the whole movie admirably, she's totally convincing, first as the grieved and forlorn widow of a husband that out of the blue committed suicide, subsequently as the exasperated woman who thinks she's losing her mind. She's not trying to win our sympathy with her aggrieved and angry behavior and her heavy drinking, but you do team up with her when her world turns upside down on her.

Unfortunately in the last half hour, when you expect that all loose ends finally will come together, the story went totally overboard, every other new thing that Beth finds out about her husband only made the narrative get more and more incomprehensible, and at last the weirdness and confusion escalated into a conclusion that was really too mind-boggling, at least for my simple brain.

But maybe expecting some logic in a supernatural ghost story is a bit naive anyway.

Well-made psychological horror flick with a great performance by Rebecca Hall. It can be considered a slow burn but I was fully invested and never bored. Very atmospheric. Lots of beautiful shots. Some effective scares. Great movie overall and I would definitely watch it again.

(2 viewings, 2/7/2022, 4/21/2024)

With a dreadful, disquieting atmosphere pervading its frames and a dark, disturbing mystery simmering beneath the surface, The Night House makes for a gripping, haunting & gradually escalating psychological horror with a plot that only gets more uneasy & uncomfortable as it progresses, and is powerfully anchored by Rebecca Hall's emotionally engrossing showcase.

Directed by David Bruckner (The Ritual), the story explores loss, grief, depression, loneliness, death & longing through vehicles of horror and is able to keep us invested in the proceedings throughout its runtime with surprising ease. Bruckner fills the space with an unnerving chill & sense of dread and unravels the mystery one step at a time but the ending isn't as satisfying as expected.

The isolated setting, silent camerawork, steady pace & smart editing help ratchet the tension when required while the poignant score keeps reminding us of the crushing weight of the void that's opened up in our protagonist's life in the wake of her husband's demise. And rendering her loss & depression with unfailing precision is Rebecca Hall in what's undoubtedly amongst her career-best performances.

Overall, The Night House is an intelligently crafted, skilfully told, effectively shot & brilliantly acted genre offering that quietly immerses the viewers into its unsettling premise and has a firm grip on our emotions before we even know it. Exhibiting first-rate work on all fronts and further bolstered by Hall's committed act, this atmospheric horror does falter in the last act but everything before it is intense & riveting. Don't miss it.