Year: 2020
Country: U.S.
Subgenre: Haunted House/Ghost/Supernatural Horror
Runtime: 107 minutes
Director: David Bruckner
Okay, it's another haunted house film! What can I say, I'm a sucker for them! Only (and I swear), this is a really different kind of haunted horror. I am not giving away anything by saying that; it becomes apparent right away. We find out almost immediately that Rebecca Hall plays a character whose husband has died, in fact, he has committed suicide. Also, that he built the house that she is left alone in. Strange things start happening and she is naturally drawn to the conclusion that her deceased husband may be responsible for them. Slowly there is a realization of another sort; a much deeper and MUCH darker set of events start to befall her at night (as the title suggests). She slowly comes to the rather haunted conclusion that she may not have known the love of her life at all. Her insistence on solving this persistent mystery leads her to the darkest place of: the literal night house. I don't think it is wrong to say that this is a horror film about architecture, both of the mind, and in the literal sense. There is scene in which the perceived haunting seems to become very manifest, and it comes from or manifests itself as part of the house changing perspectives. Beth (Hall's character) believes that it's all in her head; she's just seeing things. Seeing them because she wants, or needs, to. Hall also delivers her performance of Beth in a sardonic style that is in no way typical of a haunted woman; which adds to the terror in an unexpected way. I first watched this film late at night on New Year's day, after a long day of cooking. I was a bit buzzed too. OMG was I not prepared to have the bejeesus scared out of me. Maybe it was the circumstance, but I was turning lights on that I had turned off before the film was over! Not helping one jot was the Richard and Linda Thompson song "Calvary Cross" used to GREAT effect & affect. We (meaning me and my husband) have (both of us) been steeped deeply in the music of the greater Fairport Convention diaspora of musicians since high school. Just hearing one note of one Richard's songs in the film is going to reach out and grab. And, the use of this particular song, and it's mournful to begin with (!), in this film at multiple points; the song almost becomes a character unto itself. I don't think I need to state that it does indeed take a lot to scare me. This one did!
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