The Night House. A film by David Bruckner and starring Rebecca Hall.
This is a strangely sad and creepy film. And when I say creepy, I'm referring to the film's atmosphere. The film centres around Beth, newly a widow after her husband's sudden suicide. Still reeling from his unexpected demise, she is attempting to hold herself together, going through the motions as she begins to unravel. Beth is lost as to why Owen killed himself, saw no warning signs and is confused and angry with the unanswered questions she is left with. During this time, she drinks a lot and is not sleeping well, which is noticeable throughout the film. In short, Beth is barely holding it together, and that is before things begin to take a creepy turn.
It starts slowly, with a knocking on the door downstairs as she rouses from sleep. Obviously hesitant, she makes her way downstairs, and we see nothing outside. However, as she opens the back door, she looks back to the front door, the door swinging open behind her. In the reflection, we can make out the shape of a person, with eyes flashing in the darkness before the door closes and the figure vanishes. This is the first time we get the hint that something is lurking in the background. Beth takes back to school, she is a teacher, and it is easy to see that she is not ready to be back. After an encounter with the parent of one of her students, we see that her mental state is not good, along with losing time after appearing to doze off. Beth goes through Owen's things, clearing out much of his stuff before she stumbles on one of his architect books. Here we get to see strange puzzles and notes contained within and what appears to be a copy of the house he built for them. Now things start to take a worrying turn. Woken by music, Beth gets a text from Owen and phones him, and it appears that he answers. Then she wakes up on the bathroom floor again, apparently without any memory of how she got there and checks her phone. The message is not there. Convinced to go out, Beth joins her friends for drinks. I have to say, she has crappy friends. The line of questioning is inane, and how do they expect a woman who lost her husband a week ago to be entirely rational after everything she has gone through. But, we do learn a few things from this encounter. Firstly, Owen left a note, and secondly, Beth is beginning to believe she is being haunted. And after Claire gets Beth home, she has yet another strange encounter. Before that happens, she tells Claire of the time that she died. Beth tells Claire that whilst she was dead, she saw nothing, that there was no bright light or anything to experience. The word nothing is important to note, as it refers to the note that Owen left.
Things begin to take another turn from this point. As she begins to experience dreams or visions, Beth learns of another house that Owen had built in the forest. She finds a picture of another woman on Owen's phone that looks like her. Beth begins to obsess over this, determined to discover what Owen had been up to while believing that Owen is visiting her. It is shot in such a way that the viewer may think that this is nothing more than wishful thinking, that her grief is getting the better of her. However, Beth finds the woman in the picture and learns that Owen has been seeing her for some time. The haunting continues, with Beth learning that there may have been more than one woman. Also, her neighbour had known of this after a chance encounters in the woods, Owen coming to him claiming that it would never happen again and that he had 'urges' that he had found a way to manage. As Beth begins to spiral, the haunting becomes more intense, and she discovers that Owen had killed women that looked like her. Beth may be imagining this. Her grief and depression may be getting the better of her. Reaching a climax, the events around her grow darker, and she discovers that this being haunting her is not Owen. She discovers that this entity is what she encountered upon her death, that it has been with her ever since and corrupted Owen to get him to send her back to it. As this dark encounter plays out, we learn that Owen had tried to trick it by sending women that looked like her to it. This encounter leads Beth out on the boat, as the thing looking like Owen attempts to convince her that she has nothing to live for. Her best friend had come looking for her, and her calling out to Beth helped her to push this desire away and cling to life.
This film is about a haunting, at least on the surface. But, it feels as though it is more a look at depression, at the emptiness that can swallow up the joy of life, and that is never far from those suffering from depression. Beth had always suffered from dark thoughts, and Owen had held them at bay. He had brought joy to her life, and upon his death, they had returned. Her grief had broken her defences, and she spirals without him. Everything else may be her imagination, or some are real but coloured by her grief and depression. The film does a great job of leaving that open to the viewer.
I recommend this to any fan of horror, more so psychological horror, and it is an easy 8 out of 10. It is a haunting and sad film that leaves the viewer unsure how much is real and what is merely in the mind of Beth. Definitely, one I would watch again.
