88 min.
Release Date: July 9, 2020 (Shudder)
A seaside nightmare like “The Beach House” combines ecological and goopy body horror, making for an auspicious feature debut for writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown. In a way, this is a stealth Lovecraftian horror tale, bearing comparisons to 2008’s intensely underrated
“The Ruins,” 2012’s Barry Levinson-directed found-footage eco-horror film
“The Bay,” and even a bit of this year’s
“Sea Fever.” While the film feels like it eventually pushes itself into a doom-laden corner with no other place to go, “The Beach House” still has the power to wash away the viewer’s desire to hit the beach anytime soon.
It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend in Cape Cod. College dropout Randall (Noah Le Gros) takes his girlfriend Emily (Liana Liberato) to his father’s beach house during the off-season to work on their rocky relationship. Being alone in the house (and the deserted town) will be good for them, until Emily has a feeling someone is already staying there. Sure enough, it’s an older couple, Jane (Maryann Nagel) and Mitch Turner (Jake Weber), friends of Randall’s father who remember Randall as a little boy. Despite Emily wanting to leave, Randall accepts the Turners’ oyster dinner invitation. Things turn around with meaningful conversation and a couple bottles of wine, and then Randall offers to share his chocolate edibles. Outside, a luminescent glow reflects off the water, luring the already-medicated Jane, and a fog rolls in with a rancid stench, turning this alleged getaway into a fight for survival.
“The Beach House” is unhurried in its pacing as a four-hander on a localized scale, while economically immersing the viewer in the interpersonal tension between both couples. There’s also the growing apprehension that something is terribly off about the drinking water and the air. Director Jeffrey A. Brown takes his time building a pall of dread, and once the film gets to be horrific about halfway through with the first sight of fleshy pods lined up along the shore, it does not disappoint. One hair-raising moment doesn’t even involve any goo or gore; it’s just a simple, static shot of a character wading into the ocean until the water is up to his head, never to surface again.
The performances are all well-rounded, but Liana Liberato (who’s having a banner year, previously with
“Banana Split” and “To the Stars”) gets to do most of the heavy lifting here as Emily. Besides her character being the most prepared and capable—plot convenience or not—as an Astrobiology major and also having her scuba diving certificate (oxygen tanks come in handy later on), Liberato is an underestimated grounding force as Emily goes through the emotional and physical wringer. Both the actress and the effects team sell an effectively icky foot surgery involving vinegar, tongs, and a knife that will particularly trigger the squeamish.
It’s hard to put one’s finger on what keeps Jeffrey A. Brown’s good first film from being a great one, but such a feeling doesn’t undermine any of its merits. What makes “The Beach House” creepier than, say, an unstoppable masked killer is the threat of the unknown, something that cannot be explained—and thankfully never is—but won’t stop infecting its fragile host. Brown sticks the landing with bleak ballsiness and such staying power that his final shot could just take the viewer’s breath away. If the image we are left with hints at an apocalypse for mankind, it’s just the beginning of something else.
Grade: B
Comments
Post a Comment