The Night House: First Time Reaction

Yes, we realized after recording that we'd seen her in Iron Man 3! Truly a wonderful and talented actress. I really appreciated how deep and mature the subject matter was, and the well-crafted nature of the film.

Rewatching this I forgot how much tension gets built in this one, really felt it. I definitely like how subtle it was like you mentioned. There were a lot of things where they could have added a jump scare but they chose most of the time to make it ramp up tension and release it more by showing something very strange, like the house optical illusions. Speaking of which, I did see a twiter thread at one point where they showed a bit of what it took to make the effects and it looks like a great time for the set design folks because they have to do a lot of very careful building to make things convincing. Also glad you picked up on all the metaphor building with grief and loss as well. Rebecca Hall definitely made me a believer in her acting after this; she basically blew me away. You did mention some of her other roles, but I wonder if the one you thought you'd seen her in but couldn't recall was the role she had in Iron Man 3. In that one she was the scientist who was conflicted but ultimately decided to pursue her darker side in order to do research with Killian and she gives the speech about taking things one wrong step at a time and "realizing that she's a long way from shore". I thought she did well even back when I first saw the film as a teen so it was neat to look her up after I had watched this movie and realize that was her. I also generally like how this film has a lot of different elements to it that seem familiar but they take it in a different way. The haunted house/ghost story is so visible/known at this point, but the chart they pathed with this one feels very unique and cool and i really like it, especially since I'm familiar witha lot of horror now so its hard to really surprise me/give me a different look at things. On a side note, Hall also did another film called Resurrection that seemed very much channeling some of the vibes for this film which she was also. Unfortunately at least for me it kind of took things too far I think. Without spoilers, in that film Hall is like twice as raw as this film, her situation is like twice as bad, and she's constantly on edge and it starts to just become over the top after a while. She still gives a great performance in it but the rest of the movie is a bit much for me. But what it did do for me is make me appreciate the restraint this film has.

Kelvin