Liana Liberato and Noah Le Gros are Emily and Randall, a young couple looking to enjoy a romantic break at the titular location. That changes when they find that the house already has guests, Mitch (Jake Weber) and Jane (Maryann Nagel). The house is big enough for all of them, however, and as Mitch and Jane knew Randall when he was a child, everyone decides that they can still enjoy their time there with some extra company. Fast forward one evening meal, and some edible treats, and things start to take a turn for the strange.
It's hard to talk about The Beach House without giving away how the plot unfolds, and I don't want to do that. It's a major pet peeve of mine when people dislike a film and therefore think it doesn't matter how careless they are with plot details. Which isn't to say that I really disliked this either. I just didn't love it, and my opinion wasn't helped by an ending that just seemed to crawl along limply until the very last scene. So let's just say that there's something very familiar about the threat that faces the main characters, even if it's given a tinge of Lovecraftian colour to try and separate from the other films it so closely resembles (which doesn't work).
The central cast all do well. Weber and Nagel are excellent as the older house guests, feeling authentic and well-written as the exchanges play out in that way that can happen when you meet up with people who last knew under very different circumstances, and try to just settle into the comfort of all being adult company for one another. Le Gros is fine, but he's playing second fiddle to Liberato, who is allowed to get better and better once the scene-setting is all out of the way.
The cast can thank Brown for the material they have to work with. He does well in the writing department, certainly when it comes to the characterisations and the quick sketching of the main relationships. He also does well enough when it comes to actually directing his material, with the pacing and developing atmosphere of unease well-handled as he leads viewers up to that unsatisfying ending. It's just inevitable that he can't do enough to make you forget so many other, better, movies that have wandered through very similar territory. If you're doing something along these lines, it has to be something very special to fight for a space at the top of this particular sub-genre. While The Beach House isn't a terrible movie, and those who haven't seen many of the films that influence it will enjoy it more, it's just not good enough to justify the elements that have been pilfered from elsewhere.
I won't completely dismiss it because of it being so derivative, some of the films I absolutely love are guilty of that very same thing, but I can't rate it highly. It just fell a bit flat for me, despite it all being put together with some care and skill.
5/10
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