The most compelling aspect of “The Night House” is an insignificant reference to my home town of Utica NY. That brief blurb had me thinking I was in my own personal version of “The Neverending Story.” Spoiler alert – while this movie clocks in at a mere 110 minutes, it will feel like a never ending story.
I’ll offer my only praise as a start. The performance of Rebecca Hall in the lead role of Beth is juicy. Hall plays a character that is going through tremendous turmoil. At the films onset, she has just buried her husband of fourteen years and is dealing with the obvious turmoil.
I really enjoyed the opening scenes where the plot is strategically revealed. We know her husband has died. We don’t quite know how or why. Hall carries the performance well. We feel the entanglement of emotions that she is going through as she stumbles across photos and reminders scattered all over the beautiful lakeside house where the majority of the film is set.
And that’s about it.
Director David Bruckner operates with little inspiration, and no vision. What starts as a horror/ghost story spins off the track and into the realm of mystery. If concludes with a resounding WTF before credits role and you curse yourself for wasting $10.
Rebecca Hall’s performance is wasted in the role of a character we care for at the beginning and are bored with by the end. It’s as though they had an idea or two for creepy images like a shadow twisting its head or bloody footprints appearing out of nowhere and decided to make a weird movie around it.
Based on the random Utica reference, I assume the setting is somewhere in the Adirondacks. Even that isn’t fleshed out in any way. It effectively takes place in a “spooky” setting. I’m pretty sure the name Utica is from some key grip opening a map of New York State and pointing his finger.
“The Night House” looked like a theater must watch when I first saw the trailer. Don’t waste your time.
