THE NIGHT HOUSE
Cert 15 ★★★
In cinemas now
An award-worthy performance from the talented Rebecca Hall provides muchneeded spark in this middling haunted house flick.
The British actress plays high-school teacher Beth who lives in a dreamy lakeside house built by her loving and, she thought, perfectly normal architect husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit).
But then he rowed out to the middle of the lake in the middle of the night and blew his brains out with a gun that she didn’t even know he owned.
Beth, honouring a long tradition of movie
widows, spends her evenings downing spirits and watching grainy home videos of happier times.
Then, after one too many unexplained bumps in the night, she begins to wonder if she really is all alone in the world. As she goes through Owen’s possessions, she discovers he was leading a double life.
Hall delivers a multi-layered performance as a woman caught in a maelstrom of anger, fear and grief.
There are some solid jump scares but director David Bruckner can’t sustain the horror. Shower scenes, spooky shadows, dusty occult books and mysterious footprints lose their power in the film’s draggy and silly second half.