Reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Beth (Rebecca Hall) is left alone in the lakeside home he built for her. Before long, disturbing visions of a presence in the house begin to beckon her with a ghostly allure. Yearning for answers, she begins digging into her husband’s belongings, only to discover strange and disturbing secrets.
In the opening of the film, we learn quickly that her husband, Owen, killed himself, leaving Beth shellshocked. She wanders around her home drinking brandy, trying to understand why he would take his life, all the while getting angrier and angrier. She falls asleep or possibly passes out from the constant nips of brandy, and starts having encounters. The next day, she finds footsteps on the dock in front of her home, all leading from a boat that is tied to the dock.
Was it real?
We then see her trying to cope as she goes to work. It’s very much like watching someone grieving and just trying to go on with life. But she is still having these dreams, even one where she is hearing her husband and even receiving text messages from him. She’s having a conversation via text! How is this possible? When she wakes up, she checks the phones and the texts aren’t there.
Was it real?
The whole beginning of this movie is like that, you don’t know if she is asleep or if she is dreaming until even more strange things start happening and Beth starts unraveling. She finds out some deeply disturbing things about Owen while going through his things causing her to go looking for what it was he was up to.
What she finds isn’t good.
At this point, the movie takes us on a journey to uncover Owen’s secrets, that unbeknownst to her, all started with her.
I really liked the feel of this movie, it was quiet, dark, and captured grief and anger in a stunningly poignant way. You feel her pain, and you feel her anger. It’s like you are going through stages of grief with her as she grapples with the truth. There are a few jump scares, and it felt like the volume jumped all over the place, very very quiet scenes to super loud.
I do feel that they could have extrapolated on the premise more than they did, there were a few things that weren’t clear to me, and left me with a few questions. Overall it was a good ghost story/mystery.
The Night House stars Rebecca Hall as Beth, Sarah Goldberg as Claire, Vondie Curtis Hall as Mel, Evan Jonigkeit as Owen and Stacy Martin as Madelyne.
Searchlight Pictures’ The Night House is now on Digital and on Blu-ray™ and DVD October 19.
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