I Am the Pretty Thing Who Lives in the House, Osgood Perkins, 2016
This is a modern gothic home-run by Osgood Perkins, son of
Psycho actor Anthony Perkins.
A hospice nurse moves into an old, rural Massachusetts house in order to take of an invalid, possibly dementia-riddled former horror novelist. The time period is purposely vague, but there is no internet or cell phones or computers in sight. The only phone has a long cord attached to the wall, and there is one, old TV on a rolling carriage upstairs.
And there is a suspicious black rot making it's way down one wall in the hallway off the kitchen...
The old woman once wrote gothic horror novels, and one of which is about a turn-of-the-century young couple who disappeared after building a house...just like this one. There's a ghost named Polly who haunts the house, and who the old novelist keeps mistaking the nurse for.
And that's it.
This movie is not about "what happens." Heck, at the very beginning, the VO from the nurse that runs throughout the movie - or is it narration from the novel that features Polly? - basically tells us that we will not know what exactly happens in the end, and that our nurse - Lilly - will not make it to age 29.
This movie is dripping with atmosphere. It's creepy, haunting, and has a primordial sense of dread. The actress who plays Lily (Ruth Wilson, of Showtime's
The Affair) is kind of creepy, as well. Mousy, yet attractive at the same time...we wonder what would drive her to live in an old house with an old woman who does not really communicate with her. She roams the house, sensing something is not quite right...and when she actually reads the novel about Polly - The Woman in the Walls - Lilly gets the sense of something is very, very wrong with house.
Perkins and his cinematographer are masterful artists. The framing, composition, and shallow focus of this movie is perfect, and gave me a real thrill, knowing I was watching perfection.
If beautiful cinematography, perfect music, and atmospheric dread are your cup of tea, then this movie is for you. If you expect everything to be wrapped up in a neat, little bow and for there to be big story beats and obvious BOOS! coming at you, maybe you should pass.
My favorite film of the year so far. Grade: 9/10