The Night House Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Night House Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 18, 2022

The Night House aims to turn the Supernatural Horror genre upside down -- almost literally as the case may be -- and is fairly effective in doing so. The film favors psychological terror more so than visceral jumps, always a welcome focal point for a film of this type. The picture uses a character's collapsed mental state as a springboard for the oddities and peculiarities that slowly reveal and mount and ultimately lead the character to a series of shocking discoveries about her late husband and the very world in which she lives, including the structure she calls "home." The film is never tightly wound, favoring a slow burn approach that allows the mental anguish to simmer and the revelations to manifest slowly over time. The film ultimately doesn't approach "classic" status but its focus on structure and mental terror over externalities, as well as a solid performance from the lead, elevate it beyond expectations into a perfectly good film genre fans looking for something more cerebrally oriented should enjoy.

Grieving, recently widowed Beth (Rebecca Hall) is mourning her husband Owen who is recently dead via suicide. One night, in bed, she hears a knock on the door but discovers no one or nothing. The following morning, however, the gate to the dock is opened and strange tracks lead down to the waterfront where Owen committed suicide. Beth does her best to move on. She goes back to work in order to get her mind off of things, and time spent with her best friend Claire (Sarah Goldberg) helps, too. Beth is looking for a new place to live and is quickly moving forward by removing his old clothes and photos, reluctantly but necessarily, she believes, excising Owen from her life. But escape will not be so easy. One night, she mysteriously receives a text from Owen, or at least from Owen's phone. She believes she sees him standing naked outside. The next morning, however, the text messages are gone. In her search for answers, she finds a photo on his phone of a woman that looks like her, but she believes it is not, in fact, her. Beth finds herself travelling down a dark and depraved rabbit hole. As the oddities mount and as she pieces together various truths the deeper she digs into Owens’ life, she begins to realize something is wrong, something that threatens to pull her into a darkness, and a reality, beyond her comprehension.

The movie's strength is its refusal to spoon-feed the audience and make reveals for the sake increasing some outwardly important pacing. The picture takes its time as it pulls the story from Beth's own experiences and grief. The audience sees it unfold as she sees it unfold; there's no disconnect between audience and character, and the sense of heightened doubt and fear, of uncertainty and unnerving terror, only mounts as she slowly puts the truth together, truth which ranges from unsurprising to shocking. Still, the "shocking" part of it isn't so shocking to audiences who are attuned to how these sorts of movies work, but it's the underlying psychology and the small twists and manipulations leading to it that make the movie work. The supernatural twists don't surprise, but it is perhaps the "how" and the "why" that make it work. The filmmakers take their time to let the story breathe, which makes the pulse-pounding, quick-moving finale all the more noteworthy, even if it's a bit trite when it's all said and done.

With such a focus on Beth's psychological trauma and growing fear, the onus is on Rebecca Hall to take charge of the material and carry the picture to its highest level of excellence. She does so with a grounded realism that exudes pain but also growing curiosity that quickly manifests as inner anxiety and both inwardly and outwardly realized terror. The methodical story beats and slowly developing plot lines put her through the mental wringer, and she's well capable of capturing the character's tragic circumstances and deep-end dive into madness. She is well suited to the part form all areas of performance concern. She's the film's singular focus; the handful of other characters are mere supports to push her forward. The film focuses squarely on her, and she's up to the challenge of not just leading the film but carrying the part's weighty emotional demands as well.

The Night House Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Disney brings The Night House to Blu-ray with a capable 1080p transfer. The digitally shot picture reveals satisfying textural clarity and attention to detail, revealing the various elements on Beth's face -- lines, freckles, hairs, and the like -- to excellent clarity and format satisfaction. Likewise, the vegetation around the house, the wooden walkway and pier, and various accents inside the home are appropriately and appreciably sharp in every scene. Color output is fine. The picture holds to a pleasantly even contrast and natural color temperature. Tones are vivid as necessary and hold in darker scenes, which are many. It is in the darker scenes where the transfer runs into its two biggest drawbacks: excess digital noise and fairly thin and flat black levels, both evident from the film's opening minutes forward. Still, the encode is solid with no obvious compression issues at play. This may not be a high-end presentation but it more than satisfies basic requirements.

The Night House Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Disney releases The Night House to Blu-ray with a well-rounded DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track is generally reserved with large moments of intense sound output, such as in the 38-minute mark. Most of the intense cues come suddenly and in stark contrast to contemplative quiet and yield deep and frenzied sound elements that fill the stage with hearty surround usage, engaged low end bass, and good balance to all the elements. The track excels in those many quieter moments too when light ambience or dialogue take charge, the former effectively spaced and the latter well prioritized and detailed from its grounded front-center location. Music is clear and widely positioned with modest surround implementation.

The Night House Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Night House includes a featurette and a trailer. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. A DVD copy is not. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• What Happens at the Lake House (1080p, 22:19): Exploring project origins, story and themes, Hitchcockian references, characters and performances, technical details of the shoot, locations and production design, and more.
• The Night House Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:23).

The Night House Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Night House may not achieve enough to lift it towards the classics of its kind, but this is a rock-solid, perfectly sound and satisfying Chiller that puts atmosphere and more importantly, its lead character's psychology under the microscope. The reveals may not be entirely fresh but the film's focus and determined cadence most certainly lift it to lofty heights, as does Rebecca Hall's mesmerizing performance. Disney's Blu-ray is light on special features. Video and audio are fine though hardly spectacular. Recommended.