The Night House (2020)
The Night House: A Maze Of Grief | 4/5
Written by Noah Dietz: 2/22/2025
As Hellraiser 2022’s strongest soldier, I’d been eyeing this for a while. I’ve seen a decent amount of Bruckner’s work in the past, but despite multiple friends recommending it I had missed The Night House on its initial release run.
The Night House begins on a low note and generally stays there. Opening with the reveal that Beth (Rebecca Hall) recently lost her husband to a very unexpected suicide, we’re left to watch her work through the aftermath. Mostly expected things, at first. Strange noises in the house, Beth being unsure if she’s the one who left a door open or not, and the uncomfortable feeling that she might not be alone in the home her husband built them.
Anyone who has seen Bruckner’s Hellraiser will immediately be able to feel the bones of his take on the franchise here. The themes of grief and what it can drive us to do are on full display, as are. Some of the lines even leave me wondering if there was a version of this script that was meant to be a Hellraiser film initially, or perhaps a proof of concept for our most recent attempt to save the Hellraiser name. Regardless, The Night House is able to maintain its own identity throughout. It feeds us just enough questions to never let distraction take us away, but not so many that an attentive viewer will be left in the dust. I love being rewarded for looking in the background for things, and anyone with a thing for pattern recognition will have a field day here.
The pacing of the information we receive is incredibly important in how we feel about Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Initially we feel for Beth and her loss, but over the course of the film we start to uncover some secrets about his life that paint him in a concerning light. His collection of photos of women who look like his wife aren’t filling us with hope, and her neighbor Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall) mentions seeing him with another woman in the past. When confronted by Mel, Owen had said spending time with the other woman had helped him keep certain “dark feelings” at bay, but what does that mean?
I don’t want to get too into the late film details on this one, because I truly feel the final act was something wildly enjoyable to experience. Rebecca Hall is operating on a similar level to what Toni Collette gave us in Hereditary, and is a standout performance for horror in 2020. Bruckner continues to have a wonderful eye for visual effects and imagery, and the night scenes of this movie are actually a joy to experience. Find it, watch it, and let it sit with you before you decide how you feel.