A widow begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets.

Chuck says:

Like settling for a bowl of cereal of dinner, David Bruckner’s “The Night House” left me wanting more. Similar to that go-to bowl of “Great Grains,” the movie was filling but hardly remarkable, a film that flirts with being intriguing, only to fall short due to a lack clarity where its supernatural plot is concerned. Though effectively atmospheric and featuring a compelling performance from Rebecca Hall, the film ultimately falls short, in the end fostering more frustration than thrills.

Beth’s (Hall) world has been turned upside down. A high school teacher with a seemingly perfect marriage, she suddenly finds herself widowed when her architect husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) commits suicide. Reeling and searching for answers, she begins to go through his personal belongings, hoping to find a reason for his despair. Instead, she finds blueprints for their home as well as plans for a house that looks exactly the same, only inverted.  More distressing is the discovery of pictures on Owen’s phone of a woman who looks very much like herself.

The rabbit hole Beth falls down in her effort to find this woman and the location of the house is one rife with possibilities, only a few of them realized. Her meeting with Madelyne (Stacy Martin), her eerie doppleganger provides a few clues to all that’s happening, while her neighbor Mel (Vondie Curtiss-Hall) only provides cryptic suggestions that she’s venturing down a path she shouldn’t.

The story of a grieving woman discovering her husband has an alternate life is more than enough to keep the audience hooked, when done correctly.  However, screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski complicate matters by suggesting the house in question is in fact haunted, that Owen is still present, tormenting her with hints as to his past acts but providing very little in the way of concrete facts.

The same could be said for Collins and Piotrowski’s efforts. A connection between a near-death experience Beth had years prior and the mysterious goings-on is suggested but the connection between that event and the haunting she’s experiencing is tenuous. Far too much of the mystery and its solution is suggested rather than fleshed out. The writers mistake vagueness with cleverness, and in the end shoot themselves in the foot, narrative clarity suffering as a result.

I don’t mind a bit of ambiguity where thrillers of this sort are concerned, but “House” fails to meet the viewer even halfway, providing only hints of what might be happening, rather than clues from which to draw conclusions. Once the dust settles, the reasoning behind Owen’s secrets are seen through a haze of half-finished sentences and ill-formed thoughts.

That being said, there are some fine moments along the way. Hall is quite good, carrying the bulk of the film, often appearing on screen alone in a state of fright or confusion, none of these moments forced or false. Most effective is a meeting in the third act between Beth and Owen, one that occurs in some place in between life and death, their conversation one of dire confessions and ugly portends.

In the end, “House” is the sort of movie that you’ll likely discuss afterwards, make revelations about and be more engaged in hashing it all out than you were while watching the film. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the filmmakers had in mind.

2 Stars

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