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| I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House |
Written by: Oz Perkins
Directed by: Oz Perkins
Starring: Ruth Wilson, Paula Prentiss, Lucy Boynton
Rating: --/PG-13
Plot
A live in nurse for an elderly horror author begins to think the house is haunted and the author's stories are true.
Verdict
Despite the incredibly too long title, this is sufficiently creepy without relying on jump scares, but it lacks the big ending that retroactively makes the rest of this psychological thriller better. I kept trying to predict the twist, but it turns out there is no twist. With the obvious clues dropped into the narrative, it feels like there should have been something at the end.
This layers a nurse caring for an author, the authors book based on an actual ghost, and living in that ghost's house, but nothing materializes from that set up.
The ending is ambiguous, but not in a good way. It's just meek.
It depends.
Review
This is a tried and true haunted house tale told with restraint and precision. It opens with a lot of narration, but thankfully it doesn't continue. The only thing the narration needs to say is that someone died in the house, and after that the living can no longer own it. Instead there is a lot of talking until the movie actually begins. Much like the title, the narration is just too long.
Live in nurse Lily (Ruth Wilson) quickly begins to hear voices. With the rotary phone and her Grateful Dead shirt, I wondered if the setting was older or Lily was from a another time period, but it doesn't seem like it despite her insistence on dressing like a nurse from the '70s. Why doesn't she have a cell phone? This movie never clearly identified the time period, and it doesn't matter.
Lily is strange and Ruth Wilson nails that perfectly. I though the moment she smacked her own hand and told herself, "No snooping, you." was going to be a clue. That and if I'm staying in someone's house, I'm going to know what is where. Best believe I'm going to snoop.Unfortunately it's just a weird scene included that has no bearing.
Lily makes a call on the rotary phone, and I was willing to bet she wasn't talking to anyone. We only hear Lily's side of the conversation and the dialog is incredibly stilted.
This scene is great, and is the reason the writer included a rotary phone with a long cord. While it doesn't make strict sense, the phone getting yanked out of her hand was well done.
The movie jumps a year, which was a surprise. Nothing indicated a year had passed other than the estate lawyer mentioning it in passing. Even the elderly woman Lily cares for is underutilized. She could have been really scary.
Black spots appear on the wall, but for some reason the estate doesn't cover water damage or mold costs, only structural costs. This makes no sense as water damage can become structural, and if I was Lily I'd hire a lawyer to sue for inhospitable living conditions. The whole who foots the bill could have been deleted completely instead of just sounding silly. The black spots are the ghost, don't get technical.
Towards the end of the move, I still felt like I was in the introduction. I hoped something would happen, something needed to happen. This movie needs that extra push, and I thought it would happen when the boards near the black spots were removed, but it's just a lackluster jump scare that also serves as the climax.
We've got a great set up that never takes off. One of the last scenes was really good with the coroner's van, but it's not a great ending. This needed a big ending to make everything else better, and that didn't happen.
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