Netflix And Chill: There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)

Perhaps still best known for the two Creep movies that many keep thinking of as Mark Duplass movies (maybe because of his input, or maybe it's just me), Patrick Brice has been building an enjoyably twisted filmography over the past decade or so. I still wouldn't have considered him as the first choice to direct this teen slasher movie, based on a novel by Stephanie Perkins, but he soon shows that he's more than up to the task.

Someone is killing the students of Osborne High, with the death scene relating to some secret that is then shared around with everyone else at the school. This probably wouldn't worry anyone who manages to live their life without any secrets, but almost everyone has a secret. Makani (Sydney Park) has a big secret, a reason she moved away from where she used to live, so she starts to worry when that will catch up with her. She also has a small group of close friends (Alex, Zach, Darby, and Rodrigo) that expands by one when they welcome bullied football player, Caleb, among them. And she has an attraction to the one boy who is the immediate prime suspect when the killings begin, Ollie (Théodore Pellerin).

Both the best and the worst thing about There’s Someone Inside Your House is the fact that it is a very straightforward, non-ironic, slasher movie. You don’t get a lot of winks and gags, which means the pure and serious approach actually feels more interesting and unique now, compared to the many slasher movies we have seen that need to be loaded with references to past glories.

Henry Hayden’s screenplay puts everything together well enough, despite not throwing around enough red herrings, and you have a good selection of characters who manage to stand out from the crowd without ever seeming invulnerable. Brice works well with what he’s given, setting up the deaths as the set-pieces they should be and building up a head of steam towards a third act where we get the expected “unmasking” and final battle. The killer isn’t ever all that menacing or convincing when all is finally revealed, but that is compensated for by the messages running throughout the rest of the film, and the gory kills.

Park is a decent lead, a young woman with a troubled past who could also be a suspect in a killing spree, and Pellerin is enjoyable as the misfit who probably isn’t the evil sociopath that everyone takes him for. Elsewhere, Ashjha Cooper, Dale Whibley, Jesse LaTourette, and Diego Josef are a good selection of actors playing the core group, and Burkely Duffield is easy to like as the footballer who ends up joining their group. There are other people here, all doing good work, but the focus stays on the main group of friends trying to act as if they don’t have any secrets while avoiding a killer who could prove otherwise.

Satisfyingly bloody, and enjoyably teen-oriented without feeling too inconsequential or silly, There’s Someone Inside Your House turns out to be one of the better slasher movies of the last few years. And it doesn’t end with an obvious attempt to stretch things out into a series (famous last words).

7/10

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Wish Upon (2017)

Here are some things that can almost guarantee I watch a film: zombies, sharks, time travel, Diora Baird, and wishes that are granted in deviously twisted ways. So I knew that I would see Wish Upon eventually, despite hearing plenty of negative opinions on it, and it was only the concept that sold me. I was unaware of writer Barbara Marshall. I wasn't exactly blown away by the filmography of director John R. Leonetti (who bagged the Annabelle gig, and scored a hit there). And although I recognise lead actress Joey King, I don't know her well enough to seek out or avoid anything that she stars in.

King plays Clare Shannon, a young girl who isn't doing too well in life. Her schooldays are quite miserable, her father (Ryan Phillippe) spends most of his days scavenging from bins for items to renovate or sell on (I guess), and she gazes lovingly at a hunky fella (Paul, played by Mitchell Slaggert) who hasn't looked her way in years. She does at least have two loyal best friends (played by Sydney Park and Shannon Purser) but not much else. But everything changes when she finds a magical box that grants wishes. Those wishes come at a cost, of course, but Clare has already been seduced by a better life by the time she realises the big picture.

Starting off with an enjoyably twisted wish (Clare just wants someone to rot away), things start subtly enough to allow the film to build and build with each wish. The fact that the main characters go throughout approximately half of the movie just thinking everything is the result of an overdue deluge of good luck is ridiculous, and writer Marshall could have tried harder there, but it's easy to forgive the failings of the film as we start to watch one tease after another, wondering if people will live or die in sequences that wouldn't feel out of place in a Final Destination movie. Admittedly, tension is diluted while viewers can laugh at people sliding their hands into garbage disposal units, moving under cars that are jacked up while a tyre is being changed, or just helping someone go to work on a tree branch with the most unsafe chainsawing set-up possible, but it's all still good fun.

King is okay in the lead role, with Park and Purser both likable enough as her friends, and Slaggert does okay in a role that really sees him unwittingly under the spell of one of the wishes. Ki Hong Lee is also enjoyable enough, playing a student who ends up helping Clare try to solve the mysterious origin of the box. It's odd to see Phillippe in the dad role, despite the fact that he may have been in that age bracket for a few years now, but he does well enough, and Sherilyn Fenn gets some screentime too, which will always make me happy.

Leonetti keeps things pretty teen-friendly, neither elevating nor dragging down the average script, and the concept should please anyone who, like me, already thinks they might derive some pleasure from it. Once past the first third, which sets up the characters and shows the box starting off small before growing and growing, in terms of the price paid for wishes, this provides solid entertainment.

Oh, and if anyone ever makes a movie in which a time travelling zombie shark tries to entrap the soul of Diora Baird by offering her a number of wishes that won't pan out as she wants them to . . . . . . show me where to buy my tickets.

6/10

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Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share