The Night House (2020)

I haven't had much luck lately with a couple of interesting titles that I had hoped to enjoy, films that I presumed may have some horror genre tropes in the mix, even if they ended up playing out more like a straightforward drama or thriller. The Lost Daughter left me underwhelmed, as impressed as I was by Olivia Colman in it (who impresses me with everything she does), and now it's the turn of The Night House. This is much more of a simple genre piece, and moves further into absolute horror with each predictable bit of plot development, but it's yet another film not deserving enough of the central female performance (Rebecca Hall this time around).

Hall plays Beth, a teacher who is grieving the sudden death of her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Owen took a small boat into the middle of the lake beside their home and shot himself in the head. Beth is understandably pained and puzzled by this, having had no idea that Owen felt any such depths of despair. She starts to dig around into the life of the husband she starts to suspect she never really knew, all while being pushed on by some presence that visits her at night.

Directed by David Bruckner, who previously gave us the excellent The Ritual, as well as segments in both V/H/S and Southbound, this is a film that suffers from a script, written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, stuffed full of familiar moments to anyone who has seen any popular supernatural thriller from the last few decades. It also feels unsure of itself, trying to play out as a supernatural-tinged drama for most of the runtime before diving fully into the potential horror of the situation when it feels like too little too late.

It's fortunate that Hall is in the lead role, she's an actress who has been delivering some great performances for some time now (although her project choice isn't on par with her talent, landing her in films as diverse as The Town, The Awakening, and, ummmmm, Holmes & Watson) and this is a fantastic turn from her. Her journey is depicted in a way that feels realistic and believable at all times. Sarah Goldberg is good support, playing a caring friend named Claire, but the other standout performance comes from Vondie Curtis-Hall, playing a neighbour/friend who doesn't want to see Beth's life undone by the grief she is processing. Stacy Martin also does well, playing a young woman named Madelyne who Beth finds after discovering photos of her on her deceased husband's phone. 

This isn't a bad film. It's just a film that doesn't have any faith in any direction it could take, and therefore seems to end up trying to do a bit of this and a bit of that, leading to end results that feel half-baked and half-hearted. Bruckner directs well enough, despite the fact that Collins and Piotrowski undermine things with a premise that feels very much like it could have been entitled The Entity That Jack Built.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Super Dark Times (2017)

First of all, Super Dark Times was recommend to me by someone I like to think of as a good friend, yet also know doesn't always have tastes in line with my own. Whenever he recommends something highly though, well, I always go into it with a sense of optimism. That optimism isn't always well placed. Secondly, and important to note for others who may be debating whether or not to watch this movie, Super Dark Times starts off feeling very much like so many other movies that have mined the same ground as Stranger Things lately, but stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a very different beast.

Written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (who have built up a nice selection of genre films over the past few years, including the enjoyable Stephanie), this is the tale of teenagers being typical teenagers. The heart of the film is Zach (Owen Campbell) and his firm friendship with Josh (Charlie Tahan). Everything seems happy and normal until a nasty accident starts to push a wedge between them. Covering up their misdeed, to put it mildly, Zach becomes more and more worried, and Josh seems to be becoming more and more distant. And maybe even more determined to use the accident as a springboard for a whole new way of life.

The directorial feature debut from Kevin Phillips, this is a well-paced and well-crafted work that mixes together the ups and downs of teenage turbulence. And the journey that the main characters go on is done in a way that somehow manages to avoid feeling as if things have gone from 0 to 100 with no gradual increase in the speed of the changes. That's not to say that the plot doesn't actually unfold that way, it does, but there's enough time given to little moments scattered throughout that help to distract viewers from feeling rushed towards what is an enjoyably dark and twisted final reel.

I'm not sure there was any need to really set this in the early 1990s, and keeping everything set in the modern day would have helped to avoid that early feeling of "uh oh, they're going to do Stranger Things", but it doesn't feel forced down our throat for most of the runtime. It also doesn't really affect the plot in any way. Maybe Collins and Piotrowski assumed that the latest tech would remove any tension. Or maybe that's the time they remember from their own teenage years (I have no idea what age they actually are, this is purely hypothetical).

Campbell and Tahan are both great, and they both go through some big changes from their first scenes to their last. Max Talisman and Sawyer Barth are also good as part of the foursome who eventually start to go their separate ways, some less voluntarily than others. Elizabeth Cappuccino gets less to do, playing Allison, a subject of young love, but she does well in her role, and everyone else, whether teen or adult, helps to round out a movie world that stays quite believable and grounded.

Weak opening aside, Super Dark Times is an excellent little film that lives up to the title. Check it out if you already enjoyed Summer Of '84. Check it out even if you didn't enjoy that one. It's worth at least giving a shot.

7/10

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