323: The Night House (2020)

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Doomsday Jesus.

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Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. I don't think you're equipped to handle this right now. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

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A total joke, a waste of time, or a slash. Totally killer. Punintended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're writing these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

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No Shakespeare until next fall, please.

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The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

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And pow! Right in the mouth.

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And the paranormal paramour Binks. Do you guys believe in ghosts? The people have spoken and our patrons have decided which movie we're covering this week. Before we get down to business, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Well, let's follow up on a movie, specifically paranormal activity. Alright, I was not on this episode, just gotta be honest. I did watch the movie and I prepared, but I felt horrible. I mean, really ill that night, so I couldn't record. If you want to know what I would have rated it, too bad. But we did ask all of you is demonic possession a red flag or a deal breaker? And we have some interesting results.

SPEAKER_05 1:24

Okay, but before we even get to the results, Mac, for you, is demonic possession a red flag or a deal breaker? Would you stick around and try to help, or would you just piece out immediately?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I I think it really depends, right? It really depends on how far into the relationship you are. It depends on how much you really care about that person. If you've been on three dates, deal breaker, you're out. But if it's like somebody you're heavily committed to, you're married, for instance, that's just a red flag. You got to figure it out together.

SPEAKER_05 1:50

Okay, but what about the in-between? What if you're together for a few years, you're planning your future together, you're living together, you love each other, and now you find out they may be possessed by a demon.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Then you get them exercised, problem solved.

SPEAKER_05 2:02

Okay, fair.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

The dancer's red flag. You would say red flag.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah. At that point, you know, it's just a red flag. It's something you can work through with a little therapy with a priest involved and some holy water.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Wow. That's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, but if we've been dating for two months, it's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

We asked the listeners, however, what they thought. 23% of them said it was a deal breaker. And 77% said red flag.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I call bullshit on that, dude. Put them in that moment.

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I feel great about this. Although I will admit, I think some people voted red flag thinking it was also deal breaker. But I think it's like the vast minority of voters.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

They had some interesting comments, however, to add to the discussion. I do love this. So I'm going to read a bunch here because they're amazing. All right. Allie says, cute little red flag. Still not the scariest thing in the South Florida lesbian dating scene.

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My God. Which, you know, Allie, I really want to know what is the scariest thing in the South Florida lesbian dating scene, if not demonic possession.

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We're asking the real questions here.

SPEAKER_06 2:59

Yeah, no kidding. I'm just trying to know.

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All right. Uh Joanna says, Deal breaker, I gotta put me first.

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Amen. I gotta put me first. That's a woman who knows her value and worth. I love that.

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All right, Ruth says, a demon possessing you, it's giving weak and no boundaries, Pookie.

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Ruth, it's on you. That shit's on you. She said, Why are you letting that demon run your life?

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Yeah.

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No boundaries.

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Breebus says, What's not to love about a man you have to fix?

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Damn.

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Oh boy.

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In this economy, yeah.

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Hey, we're all imperfect creatures.

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Times are tough.

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Page Master says, I mean, you can try and get rid of it.

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That sounds optimistic.

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That's right.

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It's my kind of girl.

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Jackson Todd says red flag, because what in the Lord's name have you done that got that demon on your back?

SPEAKER_04 3:43

And that's why it should be a deal breaker. That that's true. Exactly. Not a red flag. That's why that should be a deal breaker.

SPEAKER_05 3:51

Yeah, but maybe it's not a deal breaker, but the red flag is the concern of like, hey, listen, I'm not mad the demon is here. I just want to know how it got here. Right. Maybe the backstory to the like the precursor to the demon, the math that we did to arrive at demon, maybe that is the deal breaker, but not the demon.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

At that point, it doesn't matter why the fucking demon's there. The demon is there, and you gotta deal with that or not. In my case, we know where I stand. That's not happening.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Peace out. Hey, this one's a little bit more pragmatic. Joel Worthington says red flag, but not knowing if at any moment you'll be ragdolled, prepare for the worst.

SPEAKER_05 4:27

Ragdolled is key. Yeah, Joel also said that he would be standing there by his significant other, knowing that he's doomed, but still getting the priest in. So good for you.

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Love it. Okay. Life of John Paul says depends on the demon. If it's a freaky demon, it's all good.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Dang.

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Okay.

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Coming from someone with a name John Paul.

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Looking for a demon in the sheets. Yep.

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Spice up your life. Or afterlife.

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Lord. Look, when you're trying to make them speak in tongues and they already speak in tongues, problem solved. Yeah. And finally, Matt B. Adkin says, Don't we all have demons already, though?

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True, Matt.

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Don't we? What is that?

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From like the mask? We all wear masks, relatively speaking. Come on now.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

I mean, that's not an uncommon sentiment. One of my coworkers also said, Listen, I'm fighting my own demons. I can fight them too if they're fighting mine. I absolutely loved this debate, though. And it actually translated even into my workplace. And I need you to know that I did a personal study outside of the voting polls. Because I also wanted to know it was just Sean Binks and myself. And I actually learned every Capricorn I pulled found this to be a red flag and not a deal breaker. Almost every single Virgo called it a deal breaker. The one person who said no was a man who said, I can fix him.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Okay.

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Confidence.

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And I said it in the episode that this was going to be the case. And the caveat to that is the I can fix him part because we do like a little passion project.

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Well, that's our follow-up.

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While speaking of the paranormal challenging the bounds of our love, this week's film drops us in the quiet aftermath of a profound loss, in which a woman finds herself alone in the lakeside home she once shared with her late husband. As she works to process her grief, the silence of her surroundings begins to echo with secrets, which ultimately lead her down a haunting path of discovering unsettling truths that lurk just beneath the surface of her seemingly serene existence. Director David Bruckner wields atmospheric tension to take us on a journey that's not just a quest for answers, but rather a deep dive into the complexities of love, loss, and the eerily thin veil between the known and the unknown. And this week, after winning 70% of the overall patron vote, we're talking about the Night House.

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This movie was nominated by Diana, who says, I remember when I first watched and finished this movie, my initial reaction was, What the hell did I just watch? The Night House stuck to me for many reasons. The eerie feeling that something just doesn't add up, a main character dealing with her grief who may or may not be reliable, and the use of color for certain scenes that are just stunning. It's a haunting and mystery movie, all wrapped into one with a sinister answer at the end.

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Well, we'll see just how sinister that answer is, but for now, who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

I went into this one feeling like I had some vague like recollection of this film, but the more I watched the film, the more I felt like I may not have watched this one at all, to be honest with you, because the more I went into it, the more I didn't know what was happening, and so maybe I just got it confused with something else.

SPEAKER_05 7:26

I think of this movie, I see a lake house and I think of the lake house and letters in a mailbox.

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Sure.

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So suffice to say, despite thinking about other lake house properties, I have never seen this one before. I've heard incredible things about it, but I didn't get around to it until it came up for this episode.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

I actually saw this a few years back, had to have been maybe when it came out or not long after, because I saw it on a plane. To where? No idea. But I do remember watching it on the plane, and it was really a test of how bright the airplane TVs could be. Because this movie's pretty dark in terms of lighting for the most part. This is true. It's dark in a lot of ways. That also.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

When I brought this up, I actually didn't watch the trailer before watching it. But as I started watching it, I realized I've already seen the trailer when it was first coming out, and some plot points were brought up, and I'm like, oh holy cow, I remember this trailer almost vividly because of some certain features of the story that are very unique. And I also think this is one of those things where people take clips and they put it into social media and they'll just describe the story without ever giving you the title of the movie. This is one of those movies that they use for that because it's like mysterious and crazy. And so you'll be like just browsing a story on whatever social media platform, and the woman discovers that her husband does X, Y, and Z, and then in the comments, everyone's going, What is the movie? And they're like, It's Mac and me or something ridiculous. But this is like the source material for a lot of the videos, I feel like. I never got around to seeing it, but I remember when it first came out, I saw the trailer and I thought, you know, this is very intriguing.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

It's so interesting. I this movie came out in 2020, but I feel like it just came out yesterday because that is just the time warp of all of this. And Mac, you talk about how this feels like it's something that could be seen used in like TikTok videos, etc. And even though I've heard incredible things about this movie, I've never seen an ounce of this movie. Not even clips, not even a trailer. I think the only thing I knew about this going into it was that it would deal with grief because the movie begins and someone's already a widow. So going into this, I really expected a lot of like psychological thrills. I expected it to be a really good-looking film, but I didn't really expect it to surprise me any more than that. I thought it was just gonna be a good psychological time.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

That's a fair assessment, I feel like. I didn't hear anything about this film. I I don't remember or recall anybody talking about this film with me. I didn't watch the trailer either. I did read the synopsis, and I think I was getting similar expectations out of the synopsis, just that we were gonna be experiencing some psychological mind fuck type shit, right? I couldn't figure out was it gonna play into the supernatural or was it gonna be more of this suspenseful thriller kind of vibe, right? And I just didn't know where it was gonna go, but that's all I knew with the short little synopsis it gives you.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I think I I based my expectations off of maybe just seeing some of the clips of a scene before hitting play, because again, I forgot that I had already seen the trailer for this. So some of the visuals they show and some of those clips just made it look really weird, like it was gonna be kind of a really far out kind of movie. Right. It definitely seemed very psychological, and I thought it was gonna be heavily psychological thriller or just like all in the mind, you know, really kind of twisted and not dealing a lot with reality. It was kind of hard to tell just from seeing small clips before Hidden Play.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

For me, I don't know if I necessarily had much expectations because I had seen it before, and despite it having been a a bit of time, this movie really did stick with me. So I I knew that when I re-watched it, I wasn't gonna be entirely surprised. One element that I was hoping to kind of discover on my own, especially with a psychological thriller horror like this one, and there's a twist to it, is whether I can determine what that twist is, or when you re-watch films like this, it's always a fun time because there's the little Easter eggs sprinkled here and there. This movie definitely has that, and that's just really the overwhelming feeling I had while watching this was oh man, yeah, that makes sense now, or really marinating and how ominous the overall tone of this film is. Obviously, discover uncovering grief and what that looks like for our main character, even the marriage between her and her late husband, unpacking that. It's really fun. I felt like the feelings resonated more on this rewatch than they initially did when I watched it the first time.

SPEAKER_05 11:52

Yeah. See, now I'm wondering, Binx, how differently would this movie have hit for us last year in the wake of that nice stretch we had of just family grief and trauma? Terrible. Yeah. When we really desperately needed to catch a break. For sure. It's fascinating coming into this one how, and I think this is around the time last year where you and I were both going through things, and it lasted like around this period of time, like from March to May, and then a little bit into June. It was just a rough go of it. So I think one of the biggest feelings that I was struck with is how we're already suspended in grief at the very beginning. And this movie has a really specific way of showing spaces where joy and love has obviously been but is absent from in that moment. And it pulls that together, not just with the visuals or the performances that you get, but even the score and the heartbreaking piano that plays in the background. And I think between that suspension and grief, there's also a lot of relatability. Like there's a couple moments in here. One where, you know, she goes back to a place of work and you think about like just reassimilating into life, and then you have an embarrassing moment where you feel like a lot of attention is on you. And I had like secondhand embarrassment in that moment. But even then, there was a moment where you just sit here and you're processing. Like, listen, as we record this episode, my brother's birthday was a few days ago. And as I was looking through my photos to find a picture of him, I found a video of all of my family members singing happy birthday to my grandmother on her last birthday that we ever got to all celebrate together. And I immediately broke down. Watching this now, a year removed from everything is such an interesting mind fuck because this movie beautifully handles grief without pushing you too far into it and still somehow doesn't shy away from confronting it. This is like a very cathartic movie to watch.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

That's a good way to put it. I think it still is a very heavy film to watch, even though maybe the way it delivers is I don't know if I could say it any better than you, but I feel like the topic is still very heavy, it's still very dark. The disclaimer has to be that you're still gonna be dealing with a very touchy subject. So, you know, viewers, beware if you're not in the mental space for a movie filled with depression and things like that, because that's what you're gonna get out of this film. And some may take it one way, some may take it another.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

Yeah, no joke. So fucking glad. I had just had a great conversation before watching this movie, and I was in a great mood, or otherwise it would have been a real bad time.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, for sure. I could see you have to be in the right headspace for sure. But to your point, Binks, this film was a good film to really try and play along with. I think it it was really engaging in that way. I think there were so many red herring things happening, right? I feel like it allowed for a good whodun it type suspenseful watch, and I was really trying to piece everything together the whole time, even just on my first watch. I was really just engaged in every little detail that was happening.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

It's a very compelling watch, and I think I really gravitated to just the dramatic moments. You know, Chris, you mentioned the beginning of the movie, and we have some powerful performances here. Just watching the characters work through stuff is so interesting, and it just like keeps you glued to it. Not even getting to the the the weird, spooky, paranormal or psychological stuff yet. Like just the things of just human beings being human beings was keeping me interested. Uh, and then we get to spice things up by going like, I mean, wild, honestly. We go really wild in in the opposite direction where things are not very normal and not very human at all. And so we really got like crank up the interest, put down the switch, no more stardew, it's time to pay attention. So, yeah, I think while watching this, it definitely gets your attention real quick and then amps it up so that you stop whatever else it is you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 15:40

And you know, the amping up of things is exactly what hits for me in this movie. We're a couple months now away from the strangers reboot happening, at least for chapter one of the strangers. And there are so many moments in this movie, not that it's even the same or similar type of movie at all, but there are key moments in this that reminded me of The Strangers, and then also somehow reminded me of your next. And it's probably a misleading and bad comparison. I think in the when we get into the spoiler zone, I'll identify a couple moments that really stood out for me. But this movie used some elements from those movies to really ratchet up some tension in a cool fucking way. But then I think where I struggle is I'm disappointed a little bit in the direction that it goes with the explanation or lack of explanation we get for things. Overall, this is a really solid plot, and I think the direction it goes is a really interesting one that challenges your beliefs and your understanding of things. But there is an aspect of this plot that I feel like was almost unnecessary, and there's probably a lot of deeper symbolism and meaning there that I'm sure is very beautiful, but just seemed a little convoluted for me. So I feel like it distracted from it.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, that really caught me off guard too. I think that the topic that's brought up at the very beginning of the film, grief and trying to deal with that loss, that was already kind of dark enough. And then we had to take things in a kind of a more sinister direction. And as we start to go on that path, okay, this seems very intriguing now. And at the very end of the film, it twists it even more. It's not even just about being dark, it's not about being twisted, it's about being like beyond. And it felt like very Mothman to me in that moment where it was like, it's not that it's necessarily silly, but it is like you mentioned, it's a little bit of overkill. It seems a little unnecessary. It's still very interesting though, but it ends up feeling a little bit darker than I imagined it would be. Kind of surprised me. I thought it was going to be a five out of ten. And we have some moments that are like hitting eight out of ten, but then at the very end, it it like snaps it back and it's like we are so far above and beyond, not like darkness-wise, but like outside of the concept that we introduce in the beginning of the film. And I don't it's hard to say it without spoiling too much because I don't want to give away, of course, what happens, but it brings up some concepts and then completely leapfrogs everything and goes to a completely different level.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

If I think I know what you're on to, I feel like I disagree because I feel like it keeps you thinking and it keeps you conversing about this film long after you watched it. So I don't know. I feel like it was a very interesting watch for sure. I think not a whole lot of disappointments in the film, but I do think what surprised me the most about the film as a whole was it was kind of a slow burn film. It was a slow-paced film, but somehow it just kept you engaged and intrigued the entire way through, which is I think not a usual pairing, right? Usually you're not getting a really slow burn film that you can really stay actively attentive to the entire runtime. And this one did it. At least it did it for me.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

I agree. I am surprised for that for a film that doesn't have a lot of action per se, it still hooks you. You know, you're still invested. And I think a lot of that has to do with Rebecca Hall's performance as the main character, as Beth. She's incredible, I feel, in this film. And I honestly forgot how great of an actor she is, period. I love this movie that she did called Christine not too long ago. She just can convey this perfect balance of numbness and grief and anger and sarcasm. It's like a lot of range without having to change her tone of voice, without having to change much of her facial expressions. It's something about her. Like she can really just capture a lot of these emotions that have to do with someone grieving or someone in pain. I really resonate with the way that she acts and her characters that she does when she's tasked with that kind of character arc. But she was really captivating in this film, and I think that's what really did it for me to kind of carry through when everything else wasn't really happening very quickly. It's a lot of a little bit of more dialogue and a lot of action at the beginning, but it works because she's very captivating and great to look at when she performs in in these very dark moments.

SPEAKER_05 20:05

Yeah, there's so much presence there, and I think that humanity in her, at least what she's able to deliver, is exactly what makes so many moments of this movie frightening. And it's not even the typical horror movie frightening, but rather, you know, I get clowned often for on this show saying, like, the only thing I have left to fear is the crippling marsh of time, my own mortality, and thinking about like outliving people, right? The moments where you're left to grieve the people you love the most in the world. I think it there's a lot of confrontation of that kind of fear. The fear of getting to know someone in a completely different manner than you ever knew them to be, or at least for what the context was of your relationship together. There are a lot of real human fears in this movie. And then on the violence end, there are some very real fears that you deal with, and that we do see a lot in horror movies. So this isn't a huge jump scare movie, but even within that, there are moments where if you are susceptible to them, if you find yourself getting caught up in the moment and you're not maybe someone who who watches these often, and maybe you don't predict when these things will happen. I think there are gonna be a few things that that do get you to jump.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

I agree. I think it has its moments where it hits some nerves for sure. I think it has some effective scenes a hundred percent. It's a dark film. Overall, I don't know how scary it is. I don't know if scary is even the right term to describe the movie. I would say it's more creepy than scary. It's just a very creepy, very eerie type film.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Here's what I'll say, because I some I like to think of people that aren't into horror movies a lot when we watch movies like this one. I'm gonna put this one in the bucket of movies to recommend people that are afraid, that are like think horror movies are just super scary and they'd be timid about getting their feet wet. Because I would put this a little bit more on The psychological thriller side than horror because there are a lot of drama films that captivate what this main character is going through that captures grief and depression, all of these very heavy topics. So if that genre can do that, this film is just doing that, but a little bit of horror, right? So I would recommend this to people that are reluctant to watch a horror film, but can relate to something like this, obviously with a little bit of trigger warnings, of course. But I think it's got a right balance of creeping you out, but not too much where you'd be like, Oh, I can never see this. Like, I'm too scared, I'm too much of a chicken, you know? Like, I think it's a nice touch of it.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

It's the creepiness.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I don't really find it super scary or creepy as a viewer, but that's me. The drama, I love it. The character work here, the acting is phenomenal. But when it comes to the scary, spooky stuff, it kind of felt similar to other ghost stuff that we've seen or like the invisible man. I can picture how difficult it must be for an actor to pretend that something is happening to them when in in real life there's nothing going on. You know, it's just it kind of takes me out when we get into this realm of like, is it supernatural? Is it in their mind? We don't really know what's happening. I'm not really interested in that part anyway. It's cool, it's fine, but it's just it's not scary to me.

SPEAKER_05 23:21

See, it's interesting you reference these other movies. And listen, we've done ghost movies. We've seen it. We've done movies where maybe there is more than meets the eye to maybe a person, a situation, a dynamic in a relationship. There is a lot here. I think we all go through points in our lives where we can have a moment where we're like, hmm, this person isn't who I thought they were. And it can almost feel like an ultimate feeling of like betrayal and a lack of trust or a loss of trust. And sometimes even when you're on grief, you're grieving that betrayal as well. But I think what this movie does in a very interesting way is it blends these in a fashion that I haven't seen before. I think if you can break down on math, I won't spoil which movies they are, but there's a couple where I'm like, oh, this feels like an inverse of X movie that we even covered last year, but yet still it stands apart and it feels different. There's a feeling and a tension that's just ratcheting up in this movie. And I think the way it balances that tension and then also preys on you emotionally, it just feels very different.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

It's good storytelling. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. I feel like this movie definitely feels fresh, it feels different. It wasn't, to your point, like we haven't seen some of this stuff before, but it did this whole supernatural true crime suspense mashup that really just worked in its favor, and it just comes down to storytelling and the delivery. That's really what makes this film.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

Yeah, I'd agree. And I think a lot of it also has to do with the way that it's filmed, cinematography decisions, the directing decisions, like a lot of it goes down to production. So, although maybe plot and story-wise, we've seen it a lot. Something about the way that this movie was filmed hits different for me, and I find it original. So that's really cool. Because yeah, there's a lot of ghost stories, of course. But there's a lot of horror films, obviously, it's horror that explores grief. We did Hereditary last year. We've talked about this Agnauseum, but I think it's just the way that this one is filmed, just it it left a trace on me for sure. Just as much as honestly, the ending. The ending for me felt like I wanted to have a little bit more time to marinate with what we just discovered and how everything resolves itself. But nonetheless, the way that it was filmed and just um an opportunity to see this main character really come to a good ending, like this character arc is so good that I'll take it. As much as I wished that I would have got a little bit more out of the whole plot twist, albeit fun and very cool, I will sacrifice that for the ending that we got for this particular main character.

SPEAKER_05 26:10

I love the ending of this movie. My struggle is that there is a component of not just the ending, but the whole narrative that just feels unnecessary. And it has nothing to do with the way the movie wraps up or the method in which many storylines in this movie are resolved. And I can't wait to dive into it because I feel like there's a big part of this film that I'm missing. But man, when we think about the journey that you're taken on and the seeds that are planted in the beginning of the movie, I think what this movie does really well is it has a fucking payoff. It has a payoff that feels like, okay, yes, this was worth the time invested, even through the parts that I thought were unnecessary.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

I could see that because I can't be mad at it. In my book, The Ending was kind of the weakest part of the movie, but that's probably because I enjoyed the the first part of the movie so much. I think it was a decent wrap-up to the story. There's some of the stuff that goes on here, not with our main character, but with the explanation of some other characters' actions that it was just a little cheesy to me, but story-wise, character-wise, acting-wise, it was actually very satisfying to see it through to the end.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

I enjoyed the ending as well. I think honestly, the ending was thought-provoking. I could see how it could be confusing to some people. It could leave you feeling maybe not confusing, maybe conflicted in some way. I could see that happening. But that's what I like about endings like this: endings that make you think about it after the film has ended. It just sparks really great conversation and debate and different things. And I think it's to an extent, it's kind of a straightforward answer, but there's also this kind of other thought that it kind of leaves you with, or this kind of it's an interesting ending, and I thought it was pretty well done, to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 28:02

Well, we'll see how our sentiments about the ending translate into those scores. But for now, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Yeah, there isn't much here to talk about. There's a you know, a few violent acts, a couple spots of blood here and there, and a flash of dead bodies, but that's about all you get. So it's really giving a bore on the gore score, but don't let that deter you because this film did not suffer for the lack of gore.

SPEAKER_05 28:25

And what about the animal report? I'm happy to report that nothing happened to animals in this film. Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings. The Night House from 2020 is voted by our patrons. Was it a hacker or a slash?

SPEAKER_04 28:37

There's something about this movie that just does it for me. And I'm so glad that we stumbled upon this again because I don't think I would have realized that if I hadn't had that opportunity. Like re-watching this, I realized, wow, this movie's good. I think it's the right amount of twist and right amount of mystery to qualify for a good time, but not so much that it requires insane attention to detail. It's a plus, though, I would recommend it, but it's just you don't need to like feel like you need to write notes to be able to understand what's going on per se. I think it has to do with two major factors. One being Rebecca Hall's performance, and the second being the incredible camera work. It doesn't quite feel the most original. However, I think the theme and the way that it's developed and filmed is original and it leaves you thinking like you just mentioned, Sean. So I definitely enjoyed this watch way more than I did the first time around. And for that, that means it's a slash for me.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yeah, I believe this is what Scream would call elevated horror.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Maybe the cinematography and that you're speaking to, Binks, this was really a stunning film to watch. It's an atmospheric mystery of sorts. This film really brings you along for the ride. It provokes you, much like our protagonist Beth, right? To try and figure out what exactly is happening here. And we'll get into Rebecca Hall's performance. We already touched on it, but we'll break it down in the spoiler zone, I'm sure, because absolutely phenomenal to say the least. And this film demanded attention with an hour and 47 minute runtime and getting very little visuals for the most part for like the entirety of the film. And that's man, that's hard to do, I feel like. I I'm not usually into the depressing undertones, but this one made for a terrifying and mystifying, maybe even haunting tale of death, grief, depression, all of that manifested. I feel like David Bruckner is a true master of his craft, delivering films like The Refreshing Hellraiser reboot. You've got VHS, Love It or Hate It, and The Ritual, which I believe I I want to see still. I believe I recommended it a long time ago. We just haven't gotten around to it. And now we got the Nighthouse, right? And it was just such a truly intriguing psychological horror film with really great narrative. And it's also this modern day ghost story, and I'm fucking here for it. It's definitely a slash for me.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Oh, yeah. I'll absolutely add to that slash train right here. Let me hop right on because this was such a great watch. I mean, we we've talked about the acting. The acting's phenomena phenomenal, and not just from one person, from multiple people in this film. The visuals just absolutely beautiful. There is so much to look at here. There's literally a scene where we just pan around an empty room. No humans in the room. We simply pan around. And you can see so much about this film in that one shot because you can see the attention to detail they spent on the simply like set design and set dressing. You can see the feeling that we're gonna have for the rest of the movie because as we're panning through this room, it's a little depressing, it's a little dark, but there's something to it. All those little details are intriguing, and you kind of want to spend some time on them and see what's going on, and it really shows you what you should expect for the rest of the film. And when we finally get people on the screen, they feel like real people. They do some stuff along the way that perhaps is a little bit questionable, and they make some decisions that are questionable, but for the most part, they feel like real humans experiencing some real emotions. And we have lots of red herrings, we have multiple characters that are red herrings, we have things that are going on that are misdirecting you. It is really it's like watching a magic show with a with an incredibly good magician. And so I think when you finally get to the end, unless you'd seen it before, you probably aren't expecting what's going to happen at the end of the film. You might expect parts of it, and it's like a little reward when you find out you're right, which is like a really fun part of watching it. But then we turn things on its head at the very end of the film. Now, while that wasn't my favorite part of it, I think overall this was just like an astounding watch. I think calling it elevated horror feels so accurate because it really does feel elevated. It is a slash.

SPEAKER_05 33:02

I really want to pick up on what Mac, you and Sean both said about this being elevated horror. We think about elevated horror and you can draw back to things like his house, or you can draw back to things like hereditary. This is elevated horror, yes. But it's also not so elevated. It trips over itself while trying to deliver a 30-layer cake when reasonably everyone only really wants like three layers of cake. This feels like the appropriate amount of depth and allegory because this movie is pure atmosphere. This movie is grief, but the right amount of grief to send a compelling message. And even the supporting cast is really well performed and very lived in. And listen, there are imperfect characters in here. There are aspects of the movie where I'm like, could we have done with this or done without it really? But at the end of the day, I put this in a collection of a very small group of media that I can listen to when I'm sad. And I can listen to it when I'm sad because it's the kind of sad that makes you feel less alone, but doesn't feel like it's making you feel weighted down and wallowing in that sadness. It's almost like productive sadness where you can relate to it, recognize you're not the only person who feels these things, but also let's do something about it, or there's a light at the end of the tunnel. For this movie to dance so beautifully, along being a psychological thriller and also weaving in and out of the layers of depth that it's giving, it's nothing short of impressive, and it's a slash. Now, with that, the Night House from 2020 has earned a universal slash. You can find this movie streaming online. Check the link in our show notes to see where you can find it right now. Then join us in the second half so we can break down all these spoilers together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

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SPEAKER_05 36:38

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for the Night House, which has earned a universal slash. And we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

It's not that there are no deaths or kills in this movie, because there certainly are. It's just that we don't really see any of the action on screen, and there is no real way to see exactly how many bodies Owen had under the house, but we can land somewhere between four to eight.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yeah, it looked considerable.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

There isn't a way, there's just not enough visual, you know. You just get some glimpses, so it was really hard to tell. We know Owen commits suicide, and we even have Beth flatlining for four minutes. So you have this strange count that's really hard to land on. Do we consider Beth flatlining for four minutes the living dead? I don't know. That's an interesting concept, but hypothetically, we can say maybe a body count of around eight or so.

SPEAKER_05 37:39

Here's what this movie does for me. And this is where I think I'm a little frustrated, not like in a serious, I'm frustrated way, but this man is a serial killer. And maybe he has a motive that people can relate to. Maybe you would also do anything to protect your wife and just kill women who look similar to her and you're just so tormented by it. But he's still a fucking serial killer. This would be like if there was a psychological thriller about the woman that Ted Bundy almost married while he was also killing women. It's a little fucked.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

It's fucked for sure, but it's also one of the best scenarios for having a serial killer partner. You know what I mean? Like it could be worse. If you're gonna have a serial killer partner, I'm not saying all scenarios have to involve your partner being a serial killer, but if this is the one, I'm I'm kinda okay with it.

SPEAKER_05 38:30

Just because it's the least bad of all potential scenarios for marrying a serial killer is still a step too far.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Is it the marrying a serial killer part, or is it the I would be a serial killer for you? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 38:48

I'm gonna interject because that's the part of it. I wonder if this is what you were talking about in terms of was it necessary per se? Because I feel like what they were trying to do with him was say that these urges that he has are as a result of nothing being in his head. It's not that he actually is a serial killer that just so happens to have the scenario where it would benefit him to be a serial killer. I think it's that this entity, nothing, made him a serial killer. So we can compare this to any vampire movie that we did, especially last year, like Let the Right One In, or any horror movie, I guess, where like they're doing things and maybe killing people to help someone or someone that they love, not because they actually love it.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

I do get what you're saying, and let me address it with these thoughts. First, no, this is not the component of the plot that I thought was unnecessary. I actually really like this bit. But this is also just like starkly taking the reality of violence against women and men who lure them into a false sense of security, prey on them sexually, and also murder them. But what this really felt like for me was the inverse of Fresh, where let's pretend the wife in Fresh wasn't just along for the ride or maybe a previous victim herself, but rather totally uh ignorant to everything that was happening, and then let's say her husband dies and then she learns about it later, right? Like, what would that look like? So it's not that I think he's uh just a serial killer, like I think it's very clear that he does what he does because of the manipulation from nothing, because nothing is just trying to get her back. However, it's still at the end of the day, let's take it away from her perspective. Let's look at like the neighbor Mel, the dude's still a serial killer, still luring women to his little shack in the woods and hiding them underneath the floorboards.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

This is true. And you know what? Manipulated, guided, forced, I don't know what the right term is by nothing. He's apparently trying to trick this entity, if you will. Is it manipulation or is it really just trying to protect his wife?

SPEAKER_05 41:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

There's a fine line here. You see what I'm saying? You can play devil's advocate here.

SPEAKER_05 41:08

You can play devil's advocate with a lot of things. Sir, I didn't rob the bank just to have money, I just wanted to rob the bank to feed my kids.

SPEAKER_06 41:16

That's true.

SPEAKER_05 41:17

Here's what I do think was the unnecessary component of the plot. There's a labyrinth of it all. It seems like the architecture of the house, there's almost like the upside down or the inverse or the reflection of the house itself. That is what I found very, very confusing. Yeah. It was almost as if he was trying to structurally build the trap versus just trying to trick nothing into having all these women. So that's where they felt a little convoluted to me. Yeah. Do I say I'm frustrated with a serial killer and am actually angry about it? No, I think that's actually a really cool part of the plot. But the architecture of it, trying to understand the labyrinth of it, and I know there's a lot of symbolism there, didn't think it was super necessary.

SPEAKER_04 42:01

Huh. That's interesting because I feel like when it comes to a lot of these films or just the lore of demons or ghosts and stuff, one of the main components is how do you trap it? And so that's what that house is. That's the trap. And you need it to stay somewhere, and that's where that entity is housed per se. So I feel like that's like the checkbox when it comes to this genre is having a structurally sound place where you would trap it. And it in this film, it just happens to be the the house just inverted. Very much stranger things.

SPEAKER_05 42:38

What in the 13th ghosts is this shit?

SPEAKER_04 42:40

Okay, there thank you. I was gonna bring it up earlier, but I was like, oh no, that's too much of a it is 13th ghosts. When I watched this, I was like, oh yeah, for sure. That's what this is.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

It also feels like Final Destination.

SPEAKER_05 42:53

I I guess that's just my thing, though. At no point did I feel like the thing could really be trapped there.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Yeah, I don't see the problem, Chris, is that I don't know that it was the unnecessary part of the film. I think it added depth to the film, but they didn't really execute it well in giving you enough information to fully understand why or how this was going to work. And so that is where it becomes convoluted, confusing, and conflicting.

SPEAKER_05 43:20

Which again is exactly why I'd end up finding it unnecessary because I felt like it just distracted from this really cool fucking thing that was going on over here, which is this woman coming to reconcile the fact that her husband that she loved in 15 years is a serial killer who has women who look like her buried under the floorboards of a random shack in the middle of the woods. That's enough. That's enough. We don't need to do too much here, guys. That's a lot. That is gonna fucking wreck her therapy sessions for the rest of her life.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

That is a lot.

SPEAKER_05 43:50

We didn't also need the Thirteen Ghosts Labyrinth Maze house trap, Jafar's genie lamp thing. Didn't need it.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

And honestly, I don't think we Needed the Mothman either here. I don't think having the invisible man was like a necessary part. I mean, this is like meet Joe Black here, but in a bad way. And I don't think that really added to it. He's got this whole like Son of Sam thing going on where it's like whispering his ear, and it's effective enough for him to just like believe that. But it doesn't need to be portrayed in a way that's like, oh yeah, this is real.

SPEAKER_05 44:24

It's giving Amityville. I didn't mind it.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Oh no. The worst.

SPEAKER_04 44:29

Well, while we're in that topic of whispering, though, I have to say, this-I mean, I'm not gonna take away everyone's favorite production elements because I feel like we might have some similarities here. So I'll talk about the whispering to start, because we've got something going on here, okay? Every now and then we see this type of element, which is this ominous whispering that kind of is like reverberating a little bit, and it hit me now because of course when I hear that whispering, I now think of Skin of Marink, and then I think of Amityville, and now I was like, oh shit, that's right, that's in this film too. And so I just love how the whispering just raises the hairs on my arm, you know, like it just gets me very creeped out, but I don't want it to be oversaturated though. I hope that future horror films don't overuse this because then it just takes away the whole point of it, you know. You get desensitized by it. So I want us to kind of savor that fear element and maybe get it every few years in a couple movies, not use it in every single movie moving forward.

SPEAKER_05 45:35

You know, Binks, you say things like savor, reverberate, raise the hair on your arms. I think you can just say you were into the whispering.

unknown 45:43

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 45:45

No. Binks kinks.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

No, okay, no, not Binks Kinks.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

A lot of people are into whispering, though, you know? That's the whole foreplay.

SPEAKER_06 45:54

Yeah, that's a fine thing.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

You know, into the ear, that kind of stuff. It's okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:59

Let this be known that I was just talking, I was just speaking, listeners, and look at who's chiming in, okay? Everyone else but me. Well, Mac's silent, but I know he's thinking it too, so I'm gonna loop you into this shit.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

I didn't say nothing, okay? Uh-huh. I would actually commend them on having effective whispering in this film because normally when you whisper, it's either speaking at normal volume or it's so low that nobody with like perfect hearing even stands a chance of hearing it. And at first, you can't exactly hear words, you just hear that there's whispering. And then like you get to a point where you can hear something, you can tell that it's whispering. It still helps to have subtitles on, but I found it to actually be like an effective use of the whispering. But like you mentioned, you gotta limit that whispering, otherwise it loses its effect.

SPEAKER_05 46:47

Yeah, okay. It's okay to acknowledge that whispering can be effective. I'm not saying it's a weird thing. I think you can just say you're into the whispering and it's okay. It's a universal experience. Everybody loves a good whisper every once in a while. However, I'm gonna take it a step further. And my favorite production element is not just the whispering, but it's the sound design overall. Because man, when there's a knock at the door, it immediately sent me back to the strangers. And I was just waiting for someone to say, Is Tamara home?

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 47:17

And then we have the radio blasting, right? And again, it reminds me of when the fucking vinyl record is playing in The Strangers, or when so many places are playing 80s music and The Strangers Pray at Night. And then we also have the opening of your next, where again, that kind of Rick Radio is playing or that is playing a CD on repeat while someone's being viciously murdered. It's a vibe, and that's where I think this movie is really unsettling because you do have the range of the whisper to the big loud sound, but it doesn't prey on you the typical way that a jump scare would, which is like it drops everything out and then suddenly kicks it back in. This whole movie has a wide range and a wide spectrum of sound, and I think it nailed it every step of the way.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

It also does have those silent moments that it it either leads into like the radio blasting or it leads into really nothing that spikes in volume. And but I think even in those moments, the absence of sound is very effective. So, not even just the whisper, but the absence of sound in some of these scenes builds the tension, raises the hairs, all of that.

SPEAKER_05 48:25

That's because it doesn't feel cheap, it doesn't feel like uh just a cheap parlor trick where they're just adjusting the levels in post. It just feels like very specific design.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:36

But also, can we talk about the shape of nothing?

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Oh, there it is. Okay, I'm sorry. You're talking about the sound design of this movie, and when we get to see the nothing dude, nothing man, as a sequence of objects in the frame, that was so good. And it was better when we didn't see him like move his head, because then you know, okay, they had to do a little effect, I don't know if a CGI or whatever. But when you can tell it's the shape of like a silhouette, and especially when we have the one where it's formed by a column, and so on either side it looks like the same thing, right? And you see one side move. I'm like, okay, I didn't actually need the movement. I love this for a couple of reasons. One, before the actual movement happens, it's really effective. But two, this happens to human beings constantly in real life because our brains are looking for these patterns. And so these are the types of things that actually scare humans in their everyday life because you'll be looking through a blind, and as your face moves, I don't know, like millimeters, the light in the blind moves, and so it looks like there's something flashing at you, or you'll look into a dark shadow in the corner of the room, and your mind goes, All right, I don't I'm gonna do my best, and it tries to fill in the blanks, and instead of seeing a shadow, you see a figure or whatever, right? And so when we get those moments where nothing appears as like the shapes that objects form when they're just aligned correctly, I was like, that is a brilliant idea, and I don't know why more movies haven't done something like that.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

That was the second favorite production element. That was like, I someone's gonna bring it up, so I don't need to, and I'm glad that we're talking about it. I wasn't gonna let us not talk about it. The use of negative space is out of hand, it's incredible. It's my favorite part of this movie because it's like I'm living that all the time as a kid for sure. I would look at corners and I would look at certain things and be like, that is a shape of something. And then you realize, oh no, it's not, and it's the optical illusions of it all. The director really intentionally wanted that, and I think that's what defers this film from like Invisible Man specifically, because oh yeah, especially the more most recent one, because yeah, okay, there's nothing there, it's invisible, but they're intentionally using things that are in our day-to-day to trick you, and we do that all the time. I will agree that when it starts to move, okay, now that kind of kills the whole thing, but we do have to remember it actually is an entity, so it has to.

SPEAKER_06 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

But one moment in particular that I thought was so cool in the use of this was the hallway. Because at a quick glance, I'm looking at a hallway, and then I realize that's this guy's the nothing's head.

SPEAKER_05 51:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

And then it hits me even more so that that must mean that the face that he is like right in front of her. That's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

I literally had my brother and my sister-in-law over watching this film the other night, and it took me a moment, but my sister-in-law just like jumped out of the couch and was like, Do you see that fucking face? And I'm like, What, what, what? And then I was like, Oh yeah, I see it. That's quite that's wild.

SPEAKER_05 51:36

It's wild how nothing can appear in there's just the most distant figure in the background, and then all of a sudden take up so much of the frame without even striking you with immediate realization. I'm thinking back, you know, earlier I mentioned the moments where we have like the CD or the music playing so loud. There's a point where there's the knock on the door, and then when she goes out, you can see this dark entity in the reflection of the glass door, and it subtly turns towards her with slightly glowing eyes. Because getting that, in addition to having her husband's phone already texting her, the come down, don't be afraid, that shit was great.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Yeah, but I think talking about all of these different uses of negative space, I think really ties into what we have been raving about this entire time, which is just the cinematography of this movie. Because aside from just the negative space, just the way some of these really even just simple scenes were shot and just brief moments that you get, right? Like even simple shots of just looking inside the house through the window, right? From the outside, but somehow it's super interesting and it's stunning and it's beautiful and it captivates you from every moment of this film, whether it's an intentional like scene that's full of dialogue or full of action, to even just a still shot, it's just really well done.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

Yeah, that was actually our our patron, Diana, because in her nomination, she brought up the color thing, and that's what Yeah, as I was literally reading it and saying it for the for the episode, I was like, wow, she's so right because the the scenes of red, especially at the end, just that that red, deep red lighting. The two moons. Oh, the two moons. Oh, so good.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:24

You know, we we talked a lot about the production element, and I it makes me think now my favorite scene of this film. A little more on well, it's hard to say serious side because this whole movie is serious, obviously, but it's a real human moment that I don't think needed a lot of coloring or crazy cinematography angle, none of that production stuff, actually. It's just a standard moment that I think felt very human and I could feel like I could be Beth in this conversation in some ways, and it's her talking to her friends at the bar. I interpreted it being different stages of grief or like different ways that people process death in a way. So we've got one friend that's basically deciding what's appropriate and what isn't, you know, when she's saying, like, oh, why do you still have that? Then you've got another one who's trying to approach it from like a logical perspective. Then you've got another one that wants to just deny it entirely. So it's like different people having their own opinions and talking to Beth, but it reminded me a lot of how people process their grief as well. It just felt very real life. Like I know that she's obviously asking them, you know, do you guys believe in ghosts? And she's processing this death in a very logical manner. She's not like losing it sobbing. We haven't seen that side of her, not in this film. She from the whole time we're seeing her just trying to desperately understand how someone could have done this and who is her husband and what happened to him that he would do something like this when she's the one that has these mental health issues, that she's the one that has these concerns, right? And the risk. Simple moments, simple scene, it resonated with me a lot.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

It is a simple, I guess it's a simple scene. It there was like a level of insensitivity, I felt like from the friends because they were legitimately, I don't know who said it first, but like challenging the fact that she didn't know anything about what was happening, right? Like, I think that's like, who the fuck are you? And then asking if there was a note and then acting like it was way too far when the note got pulled out. Like, you fucking asked for it. Why don't you shut your fucking mouth right now? Because you got what you asked for.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

Absolutely. How people can like pry and they want to help you, and so they're there at the bar trying to console you, but then they're asking questions and details, yeah. Almost like in a gossipy manner, but then when you get the answers, it's a little too much. It's like, oh, why do you have that? It's just it's very layered.

SPEAKER_05 55:54

They're making a spectacle of your grief. Absolutely, they're sensationalizing it for their own amusement, and it's not on the surface of their minds, but it's an irresistible, uh, undeniable intrigue for them because they're absolutely hyper-focused on this the biggest thing happening to someone right now, instead of giving this the space to just let her experience what she's experiencing. And my favorite scene actually comes on the other side of that because at that point she hadn't completely lost her shit. But my favorite scene is when she completely loses her shit. She finally caves into her grief, she acknowledges that she misses him and she's asking him for something or asking him where he is, and then nothing has written here in the fog and the condensation on the mirror. First off, uh, this scene got way too erotic way too quickly. But that scene goes from such a high point in grief and pain to then another extremely high point in the peace and intimacy of thinking she's with her husband. She feels the ultimate comfort. She's smiling a little bit, she has goosebumps. You know, you can see indentations on her skin where something is caressing her and she feels held again, she feels loved again, she feels safe again. It's giving the movie ghost. But then you get the moment where nothing says, I'm not Owen. And just like that, she is dragged through the horrors and the reality of who her husband was. And yes, he has his motives, yes, obviously there was some pain there. Yes, you see him crying and tormented by this, but she goes from the pain of missing him and the idea of him being a serial killer in the back of her mind because she's missing the Owen she knew and loved for 15 years, to the high of having him, the low of realizing she does it, and then the shocking reality of finally seeing and finally confronting who he was when he was ending women's lives. What a fucking roller coaster of emotions.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

It is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

It feels like if someone got a bucket of ice water and just like throws it on you. Yeah. Truthfully. And and look, I know we're joking about the eroticism of that scene, but hear me out just for a second, because uh it that's where like quite literally the bucket of ice water honestly hits. I can't remember now what film it was that we reviewed where we talked about something like this. But grief is so interesting, and one of the ways that you can process grief obviously is like the craving of intimacy. That scene in particular, that's how I interpreted it. When you go from feeling so numb and so empty, the other spectrum of it, like the zero to one hundred of it all, is you know, euphoria and just wanting, you know, that intimacy with someone that you love so much. And obviously, sex is one of the ways that you show that, right? So I think that's what that was. I hope that people saw it that way and not of a like why is this becoming like a weird sex scene right now with a ghost?

SPEAKER_02 59:06

Well, I think yeah, if they went far enough, it probably would have been that way because nobody wants to see a ghost sex scene. Nobody wants to see it.

SPEAKER_04 59:15

This would have been a scary movie. I don't know what scary movie it is, but if you know, you know, there's like a scary movie. Yeah, maybe it's three where they are doing that. So maybe it would have been a little too much.

SPEAKER_05 59:25

The movie is tasteful, but it's also because it gets you right there to the edge of thinking something's gonna happen, and then all of a sudden you realize that shit ain't owing. And what a sudden snap back to reality.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Yeah. Wow. My favorite scene is nowhere near as tantalizing as your choices here. Mine is much simpler, and it goes back to the beginning. It's that impromptu parent-teacher conference. Yeah. There's something about that that felt one, it was funny. It was actually really funny, but it just like felt so human. And you had secondhand embarrassment for this parent because you knew that she was about to light her up when she just kept pushing the issue. But the line about the kid's name was hilarious to me when she was like, you know, my my son hunter, and she's like, I got so many hunters.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

Like, oh, just talking about millennial parents what they're naming their kids right now. It's perfect. And then when she blows up on her and she doesn't hold back, she tells her what happened to her husband, and she's just like, Oh, I didn't know. And she's like, Yeah, so you want that B?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

You want A? How about A? You want A? Okay, so you're fine with the B. Okay, good, sounds great. And it was just like, oh man, she is so ready to unleash some of this that's like buried deep inside. And you just happened to push the right button, but she didn't take it too far, which was good.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:37

Especially for a parent who's just coming in there and to make sure that her kid cannot be held accountable for his own shortcomings.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:44

Right. Classic Karen. Mac, that's such a good one. I feel like we all have been in a situation where we have a personal matter going on, but naturally we have a customer or a client or whatever, or a student in my case, like feeling like they are entitled or whatever personal matter they have should overshadow whatever you're going through. That's this right there, that scene, man, did it hit me right in the middle of my chest.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Super relatable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:15

Super relatable. Especially when I lost my grandfather, it was in the middle of peak season for my job. And I remember I was gone for like almost a week and a half, two weeks. And I remember I had so many emails I had to answer back, so many complaints and things going on. And it's like, you want to join the school? Let's go. I don't even have the time nor the care with what I'm going through. So this was so great to see. Someone may say, like, was it really necessary? Maybe not, but all of these small moments of just having real life scenarios is so great when you think in the bigger picture this is supposed to be some kind of supernatural horror film.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:53

See, that's exactly what this movie does. It grounds you in reality before slapping you upside the head with a 13 ghost trap house.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:01

Oh no. But there is good humor built in there too. And I think there's the scene where Beth hears footsteps or something, whether it was upstairs or downstairs, I don't remember, but I feel like she's had enough at this point, and she just grabs her bottle of liquor, she takes a fat swig, and she's like, Okay, let's do this. And she like goes to confront it. I think, man, that's something I would do for sure. Be like, fuck all of this. Let's just fucking take this shot and figure this out. There's that scene where Beth is on the dock, it's like this haunting drifting off in the boat in the middle of the night. You get the blood moon we mentioned, right? You get the cover art of the movie, the colors and everything, the dual house, like on the plans or blueprints, you're going through all of this information. It's just the way it transitions into this trippy experience where it makes you feel like she is dreaming or having some sort of out-of-body experience while you're watching it. And let's face it, she's in the fucking further. Get fucking Patrick Wilson over here to help her fucking out of this and just ask all, have you seen this girl? Have you seen this girl? You know, that's that's really what we need here.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:11

It absolutely is. Would it have ruined the movie? Maybe. Would it have made it better, also? Maybe also that, yeah. Give me Lin Shea going into the further, and we have a deal. Fuck Patrick Wilson in this particular scenario, not for him, but for Josh. Give me Lyn Shay.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

There you go. But no, yeah, all jokes aside, that whole sequence of scenes or what have you was just really beautifully done. It was trippy to watch and it was well executed.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

Could I add a quick other one? Just a quick other one that I think we all might have gotten a kick out of. Just the whole final note in general. I guess you can't really call it a scene per se. Can we call the the final note a character in and of itself? Because I love that wordplay. Okay. When you first hear it, you think, oh, okay, that's what this is about. Like, there's nothing in the afterlife, you know? Like, that's tough. It's hard to hear. No, he really meant nothing. This man's name is nothing.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:07

Nothing is after you. You actually bring up such a great point here because one thing that struck me outside of the myriad of other movies I've already listed in this episode, nothing from this is giving nobody from the Odyssey. When Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his name is nobody, so then the the no uh the cyclops is like, nobody, I I've been blinded by nobody, nobody blinded me. And it's like he just sounds like a fucking clown. That's exactly what this feels like.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Nice. Wow, yes, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

The Odyssey.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:41

The look on all of our faces when you said that it was like the biggest light bulb just went off.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

For all of us, we're like, oh shit, we haven't. I mean, I haven't thought about the odd the Odyssey in a bit. So in a long time. That was super good.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:53

Yeah. This is where one other element of my personality that rarely ever comes out, and it's a love of literature. This is the one moment that's gonna shine this year. Then it'll be talked away until next year. I'll see you next year when I talk about Jane Austen.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:06

Well, I guess the note has to be a character because is there anyone else to talk about other than Beth? Honestly, in characters. I mean, that made an impact in the way that Beth did, to be honest with you. You can say whatever you want outside of Beth, but Rebecca carried the film on her fucking back. She delivers like a smart and fierce performance. I feel like unrelenting she was in this movie. Like it just amazing work.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:32

She does phenomenally, but I also have to say that runner-up for MVP goes to Claire. What a great friend. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:40

What a great friend. Always showing up for her, always coming through for her.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

But I was like thinking she was up to something earlier in the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

At the very end, she took too long.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:51

Yeah, she's definitely one of the red herrings, too. And she is a good friend, but I I struggle a bit. Maybe I'm just blind. Blessed with the friends that I have. But there's no way on this planet that I would just be left alone after saying some of the things. If I was Beth, right? There was no way that I would be left alone after the things that I've said. No way on this planet. When she's like, oh, call me when you get home. Yeah, let me know. No, you see, my best friends have lived in my house at this point. They they moved in. They've got their bags, they've got their own toothbrush. If I lost my partner, they've been living with me. They're seeing nothing too. They must be. Because there is no way on this planet that they would just be okay with me being by myself after such a catastrophic, life-changing scenario. That's just me. But that maybe that's extreme high expectations to also have portrayed on film. We wouldn't have the film that we have now. So there's that.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:44

You do have great friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

So at the very end, Claire walks. And that's the problem I have with her. She sees her on the boat. She's incredibly worried about Beth. And she doesn't run out there to check on her. Because one, she's in the boat. She knows something bad is probably going to happen or could happen. And she like takes her time to like, let me go look out the window. Let me like walk down there. Now we're watching it. And my wife was like, run, what are you doing? Run out there right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:13

She jumps in the water and saves her. Therefore, all of that is negated, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:18

Yeah, eventually she gets to it. I did enjoy the fact that not low-key made her a red herring and Mel, like the neighbor at one point. Yeah. They set him up to be like in on it. Like he knew what was going on or he helped them or something. And so, like each step of the way, as you're trying to figure out what's exactly going on, they know that you're going to try to do that. And they don't do it in silly ways, like we get in a lot of other horror movies, where it's you know almost too obvious that somebody could be the killer, but that means they can't be.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:46

It's so interesting because I never got that energy from Claire. I just got What? Yeah, no, I just got like a friend who is trying to figure out how to best handle her friend and is kind of thrown off by how fucking weird some of this shit is.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

Ooh, no, man. Yeah, I was getting the vibes that she was just like, like not like she was there just because she had to, because like she's playing the friend part, but she knew a little more than she was giving off. Like, I could have sworn it was gonna be like this weird like partnership with the husband at first. But I think that's also what I think is really. I mean, you can even say that Owen's lack of presence in this movie as a whole is also kind of a red herring from the synopsis throughout the whole movie. They're playing this shit off like he's got something to hide, and he really didn't have anything to hide.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:38

Well, okay, he did. He's a serial killer.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:41

No, no, he's a serial killer for her, so technically it's all good. It's a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:47

This man's photographing women in the bookstores and also learning them there's a whole house in the woods that she didn't know about.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

To trap the entity that was attached to her. It's a Romeo and Juliet story.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:00

But there's still a lot of secrets that come with that. He was still fucking other women in the name of killing them.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Like it's just wait, we don't know that he was fucking them. We're going too far now.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:11

No, wait, we know that he wasn't because she said so. She said that they No, no, that's one girl.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

I think he was just killing them.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:19

There is another scene where he's getting undressed with one.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

Oh, I do remember that. I do remember that.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:26

Okay, you know what? Yeah, and here's how we know that he probably was, because they are saying that he is tricking nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

To make nothing think that that is Beth.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

So it's a thin line, man. It's a thin line.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:41

You can think that him having a good reason to do it means that he doesn't have anything to hide. But I'm just saying the facts is the facts, and he was hiding all that shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

I would love for this film to have been more ambiguous in terms of if nothing is even real or not, because it really plays out like it's like this is real, this is the confirmed story. And I would love for there to be an ending here where it's all a bunch of BS and it's all just like a really good explanation for emotional stuff. Because I mean it would be more satisfying if he was just a psycho. And you know, he was doing this stuff and she's trying to grapple with it, and this this whole demon entity thing is just made up inside their heads. That to me would be a little bit more interesting, and so like he does all this thinking that he has to, but in reality, there's something broken, and he just feels the desire to kill people.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:32

Yeah, I guess we just don't need the justification of men killing women, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

Yeah, I just that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

I like what they did. I think it was a different take. It thro it throws you off. Okay, whether you say he's justified or not, that's an opinion that you all can have. I just think that the direction they chose to go with and give you that kind of plot twist. I think it was good.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:55

Yeah. Can I tell you what I didn't like? We didn't need naked Owen as nothing. Uh like walking on water as if he's the death Jesus. I don't know. It just felt unnecessary. Didn't need the buttocks, didn't need him naked in a boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

Doomsday Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:12

Didn't need any of it. And we see him as clothed Owen later because he's then like whispering to Owen and Owen almost kills her. But it just seemed a little out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

I would say that there's not much to hate about this movie. Like if you watch it and you have a good time, there's not much to pick apart. But ba major miss opportunity. You can call it the worst part if you really want to, but that's nitpicking. But the fact that Owen continued to portray nothing was a bummer. I think nothing was very effective when it was portrayed by nothing, by shapes, by the moons, by wind, just by movement throughout the house. I liked that part of it, the concept that it's this entity, that it's a force. But when Owen in the dreams is also nothing, I'm like, why? You know, it goes back to like serial TV shows where they're like, hey, for this episode, you're all gonna be possessed by ghosts. So it's all gonna be the same actors, but you're gonna be playing different characters. Okay, I get it. You don't you don't have the budget, whatever. It's kind of boring. And it was kind of the same thing here. Like, once we realize that there's this other entity and we're still in dreamland, why even show Owen pretending to be nothing, pretending to be Owen?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:26

I can't decide if that's like the disappointing part or maybe the worst part for me. Maybe I'd have to agree with you there because I can see how it also just becomes very confusing from at that point on. They want to have the viewer still believe that the husband is still the villain. You know what I mean? The husband is the the problem and we're unveiling who he really is while the plot twist, no, it's nothing. And that works, but did we need to have Owen be nothing? I don't think we did. I think that also just ties into, in general, what I was talking about earlier, my disappointment, and it's that the unveiling of this whole plot twist happened so quickly to me in this whole showdown at the end. I would have liked a little bit more of a moment to really marinate in it. And if that looks like what you mentioned earlier, that it all ends up being BS and it's just really in her mind, that's how she's rationalized this whole thing, is that there is an entity that is nothing and it's not Owen and all this other stuff, then so be it. But yeah, I I feel like that I had such a good time with that ending and it being, oh shit, it's not that nothing is there, it's that nothing is there, and that's so cool that I didn't want it to end, I wanted it to kind of keep going. So if I had to nitpick, I guess that would be it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:42

Yeah. It's it is the confusing aspect of the film for me. If we have to pull like worse part of the film, because I agree with you, Mac, there isn't necessarily like a really truly terrible part of this film. I I do think what we touched on earlier of just not diving into enough information or releasing enough information on some of these key elements of what Owen was doing to counteract this entity, this nothing, this death, whatever it is that's following Beth. That was a little bit of a miss. I also don't think we want this movie to go any longer than it is. So, how do you incorporate that and shave other areas off because I don't really want to miss anything else that they gave us?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:28

Yeah, it's tough. And I think the convoluted parts of this movie are the only thing that give me pause when considering re-watching it. I think I absolutely will, but I'm gonna need some time and space for sure. And it's gonna be one of those where when I do re-watch it, I feel like I need a better understanding and a different perspective on the architecture part of it and just the symbolism behind it. And I understand what it's objectively for, but I feel like I'm gonna need some time before I can give it a fair shake and really just try to take it in again to appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

This is interesting to me because it reminds me in some places of movies like hide and seek, or I don't know, there's like a couple other movies where there's like one character that you're curious if they're bad of what they've been doing, and we kind of go in this process of discovery. But I feel like those typically gravitate more towards the thriller side of things, and so you can watch them more often. And this one doesn't like it's it's a thriller for sure, but it doesn't like nail that. It definitely steps into the psychological horror a lot, and so that makes it something that you can't watch very often. So yeah, I could see myself watching this again in the future. I just like you're saying, like you need space for sure before you try to watch this again.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:39

I definitely agree. Yeah, I I feel like now that I've seen this movie twice, I would want to maybe revisit it a few years from now. And that's not to say that it's bad, it's just that it's got a great way of unveiling everything, and I would hate to sour that by watching it so often. There are some psychological thrillers and thrillers in general that you can rewatch more often, and yeah, you know what happens, but it just it still hits right, and you can always pick out the Easter eggs every like every so often ever with every rewatch. This one I think has that, but you could catch it a lot faster. So if you were to see it more often, you'd be like, Oh yeah, no, this is the you're just gonna be desensitized to it all, especially with a topic this heavy. I think it's kind of nice to when you go through something big, you know what I mean? Like you want to be able to still resonate with it, and if you revisit it too often, it's probably not even good for your mental health, to be honest. So best not.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:37

Yeah, it's definitely something you can have a good time following the hints and clues they give you. They are more out in the open, you're right, but I do think that's what gives it its rewatch value, uh, aside from just being a really well-executed film, a really well-done film all across the board. Great storytelling, great, even though it's a slow burn, you can arguably say it's still great pacing and all of that. So yeah, I think it's definitely rewatchable. It's something I'm definitely going to watch again. I know that I will, but it is a heavy film. So I don't know if it's space, distance between watches, or just the right mood that you want to be in to watch it, but you have to be careful when how you watch it, but definitely something that easily can be rewatched.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:23

Well, proceed with caution, folks, but for now, there you have it. The Night House from 2020 has earned a universal slash. We've certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation about this movie and its depth does not end here by any means.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:36

Definitely not. We want to know what you think. Let us know. You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. Click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

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SPEAKER_05 1:17:55

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, you still have a life to live.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:59

Everybody has a different barometer for that sort of thing.