The Beach House (2019)
Dir- Jeff Brown
It is not uncommon for a horror movie to occur in a location that would otherwise be seen as a vacation destination. In director Jeff Brown's The Beach House, a seemingly perfect vacation home becomes the setting for terror as four people encounter a mysterious series of events that seem to be coming from the sea.
Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall (Noah Le Gros) are a young college couple hoping to reignite their relationship by staying at his estranged father's remote beach house. Their seemingly perfect weekend is interrupted by another couple who are already using the house. They decide to make the best of the situation and enjoy food, wine, and recreational drugs. Yet a strange illness begins to affect each of them as they encounter some bizarre events that test their trust in each other as well as reality.
The Beach House arrives on Shudder during a global pandemic with its plot that is all too relatable to many viewers who have had to socially isolate. The film blends several horror genres mixing a little Cronenberg with some Lovecraftian imagery. Liana Liberato is well cast as a scientifically minded young woman who has her whole world shaken. She witnesses her boyfriend and house guests, each falling ill to an unknown but seemingly natural threat. The shift in horror styles is carried out quite well and allows the movie to set its own path, giving viewers a terrifying journey as they are left little time to figure out what is going on.
The Beach House makes effective use of isolation and the threat of an unknown illness to make it a surprisingly scary movie that makes use of bizarre visuals and some gory imagery that helps it stand well against more significant big budget horror films.
Three and a Half Stars out of Five
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