There's Someone Inside Your House- a not very accurate title for the latest attempt at a slasher
Directed by: Patrick Brice
Stars: Sydney Park, Theodore Pellerin, Asjha Cooper, Jesse LaTourette and Dale Whibley
Where to watch: Stream on Netflix Canada
Based on the 2017 YA novel of the same name, there is quite a few moments to appreciate in Netflix's latest attempt at creating their own big slasher series. The overall idea behind it was fairly solid, and even the kills that it does provides a good form of entertainment. Albeit all that, the movie never fully lands the punch it wants- and in the end becomes largely forgettable.
The graduating class at Osborne High is being target by a masked assailant, intent on exposing each victims darkest secret, and only a group of outsiders can stop the killings.
That alone is a solid plot point. Using the idea of exposing the skeletons in teenagers closest' their deepest darkest secrets that they don't even tell their closest friends before killing them- is a brilliant idea. That moment of anguish knowing that the world will discover what you've wanted hidden for so long, before your last breath is taken out quickly is something so horrifying that the setup was all but a layup from the onset. The use of each persons face as the mask that ends their lives is brilliant as well and the moment I clued into it with the first killing was a huge rush of adrenaline as these terrifying reflections of the victims stared them down before plunging the knife down.
Its just after our first two kills and the reasonings behind it, do we quickly learn that the writers didn't have much laying on for good reasons as to why people were targeted. Alongside the lack of proper reasoning for why the killer was out doing the horrifying things that he was doing, the script itself was overall weak. There were constant moments where I would look at my girlfriend, and say, "why didn't this person just do this or go this way?" when it came to their escape from the killer. The characters in horror movies have evolved out of the trope of being stupid for the sake of script, yet this movie not only regressed back into this trope it went so far back in it that it made slasher victims in 1980 movies seem like rocket scientists. The ending is clear that they didn't exactly have a proper murder in mind, as the killers reveal is not only predictable due to the small pool of possible options it could be- but the logic behind the killings is only a quarter explained during the reveal and none of the reasonings behind it make any sense as to why they did what they did.
Netflix, please hire younger writers to write teenagers or young adult characters because the script was so weak and unnatural. I may be 25 years old, and slowly leaving the time period to fully be up kept with lingo and what not, but I know enough young people through family that I can tell you that every single one of these characters weren't written to sound like ones in the year 2021.
Overall, if you're looking for just a mindless slasher movie for the horror season this could be a good streaming option. Just don't expect too much in terms of story, and you'll likely be able to predict the killer by even just Netflix's poster for it.
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