OUR HOUSE (2018)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    Anthony Scott Burns
Writer:       Nathan Parker
Producer:  Lee Kim, Martin Katz, Karen Wookey, Ulf Israel
Stars:     Thomas Mann, Percy Hynes White, Nicola Peltz, Kate Moyer, Robert B. Kennedy, Lucius Hoyos, Marcia Bennett, Allison Hossack, John Ralston

Review Score:

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Summary:

A college student’s experimental device inadvertently amplifies paranormal activity inside his grieving family’s home.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

College student Ethan disappoints his family by leaving dinner early to continue working on ELI, an experimental apparatus designed to generate wireless electricity. Ethan and his girlfriend Hannah sneak into their university’s lab to activate the device, but hurriedly leave after the massive power draw causes a campus-wide blackout.

The next morning, Ethan learns that his parents Richard and Lila were struck and killed by a truck. Ethan moves back home to help his younger brother Matt and little sister Becca adjust to life without their mother and father.

Ethan continues working on his machine in the garage. Whenever Ethan activates the device, the siblings notice instances of apparent supernatural activity throughout the house. Although Becca also begins speaking to an unseen entity named Alice, the trio eventually becomes convinced that their mom and dad are trying to communicate with them.

Having not spoken to her since his parents died, Ethan tells Hannah what he believes is happening and asks for her help tuning the machine. When he comes home, Ethan finds Becca’s doll levitating as Becca and Matt play with an invisible presence. Ethan warns his siblings to not use the device when he isn’t around and to not tell anyone what is happening.

Next-door neighbor Tom, a widower who works for the DWP, helps Ethan rewire the house’s electricity to provide more power to the device. With Matt and Becca’s encouragement, Ethan continues working on the machine to make a stronger connection to the spirits.

Matt’s friend Dag comes over to the house. Ethan activates the device in the garage. Dag flees on his bike after encountering a shadowy specter. A presence nearly drowns Becca in the tub.

Tom comes to see Ethan demanding to know what the device really does. Tom explains that because of the machine’s signal radius, he has been having encounters with a ghost he believes to be his dead wife Karen.

Ethan and Matt press Becca for more details about her imaginary friend Alice. Becca explains that Alice used to live in their house and is afraid of someone named Henry.

Hannah stops by to show Ethan footage from their university experiment that depicts a spectral figure in the background. Ethan and Hannah visit family friend Marie, who explains that Alice was a little girl who disappeared and her foster father Henry Gifford was suspected of being involved.

A ghost lures Becca into a trunk by playing hide-and-seek with her doll. Becca discovers a passage leading to a hidden room in the house’s basement where she is captured by a specter.

Realizing the ghost isn’t his mom or dad, Ethan rushes to the house with Hannah. Ethan discovers the device is gone. While Ethan goes next door to confront Tom about the missing machine, Matt and Hannah frantically search for a way to get to Becca.

Matt and Hannah become separated. Matt ends up in the hidden chamber captured by the same entity as his sister.

Desperate to continue communicating with the figure he believes to be his wife, Tom refuses to let Ethan have the machine back. The two men fight. Ethan eventually convinces Tom that the ghost is not Tom’s wife and he needs to get free to rescue Becca. Tom relents only to be pulled away by the apparition.

As a dark figure approaches Matt and Becca in the other house, Ethan smashes the device at Tom’s. The entities vanish. Ethan helps Tom recover before reuniting with Matt, Becca, and Hannah.

Ethan, Matt, and Becca move out of the house and into a new place. Although Becca purposefully leaves her doll behind at the old residence, it mysteriously resurfaces in a moving box.

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Review:

If he and his girlfriend Hannah can get it to work properly, Ethan’s experimental apparatus could be capable of generating wireless electricity.  In the meantime, Ethan is about to discover his device inadvertently doubles as a Wi-Fi Ouija board capable of summoning supernatural spirits.

Ethan’s initial experiments are suspended when, after their parents die in a tragic truck accident, the inventive college kid finds himself summoned home to help younger brother Matt and little sister Becca adjust to life without mom and dad. DIY research moves from a university lab to the family garage as tinkering continues on the ticking and whirring machine.

Each time Ethan fires up the device, something seemingly paranormal takes place in the house.  Smoky shapes spiral in shadows.  Floors creak with invisible footsteps.  Whenever the electrical charge amplifies, so does odd activity.

Matt and Becca are quick to conclude that their parents have a message from beyond the grave.  Ethan isn’t so certain.  Once events take a slightly sinister turn, the siblings realize the haunting in their home could tear their family apart further.

Never mind how the summary sounds.  Should you be looking for a straight shot of haunted house horror chased with copious chills, you won’t find such juice in “Our House’s” bottle. Based on Matt Osterman’s under-the-radar 2010 feature “Ghost from the Machine,” director Anthony Scott Burns’ 2018 refresh can be classified more comfortably as a deliberately subdued thriller spun subtly out of family-focused melodrama.

Despite having grounded objectives as a genre film, “Our House” has its work cut out for it. Through no real fault of its own, the movie sees itself competing in the same stellar calendar year as “A Quiet Place” and “Hereditary.”  Running on a quieter engine of pulled-out pacing and traditional ghost story trappings, “Our House” has a harder time besting buzzier opponents in the growing arena of grieving family spook shows.

Which isn’t to imply “Our House” doesn’t make marks of its own.  They just don’t cleave as deep or burn lingering scars to be salved through deep conversations after end credits roll.

Introductions establish characters in a manner that can be described as patient by some or laborious by others.  Fortunately, the film’s strongest suit involves an excellent array of natural performances from a predominantly young cast whose characterizations carry initial intrigue.  Ethan, Matt, Becca, and the rest don’t have the most energized personalities, but Anthony Scott Burns calibrates everyone to a wavelength where organic interactions read as realistic.

Thomas Mann in particular puts impressive inflection on early dialogue to sound like a fully fleshed person instead of a delivery device for exposition. His mannerisms work effectively at endearing Ethan to the audience.

The movie’s weakest attribute involves its curious composition.  “Clunky” isn’t an entirely fair word to use, although “Our House” doesn’t pull its components together tautly.

Among other elements, Ethan and Hannah have a third person helping with their project who disappears after the first experiment to be never mentioned again.  Hannah largely vanishes too.  Ethan holds a job at a hardware store that doesn’t do much to motivate story progression.  Ethan does have a DWP employee neighbor who predictably comes in quite handy, even though he is weirdly established in two separate scenes, as if the second act means to remind that his first act bullet hasn’t yet fired.  Essentially, Nathan Parker’s script could have benefitted from at least one more draft to tune up secondary character relevancy while trimming setups that are edited in at inopportune moments.

Choppy rhythm notwithstanding, “Our House” still comes down to hit or miss status due to dependence on formula.  A child talking to an imaginary friend.  A secret passage exposing a hidden room.  A decades-old mystery involving a wronged, restless spirit.  The film’s list of recyclable tropes is almost as long as its very gradual ascent into action. 

No matter how well worn, it isn’t the tools that make a movie.  It’s how that movie uses them.  With this in mind, “Our House” mostly manufactures an above average effort out of its moody look into mourning children’s post-parent lives. Then again, it also hiccups on unresolved plot points, such as the vengeful ghost’s origin, on its path to crossing a mundane finish line.  In choosing how to proceed, consider personal proclivities for slow burn drama as well as fright film familiarity.

Review Score:  55

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