Netflix’s newest horror film is There’s Someone Inside Your House, a slasher directed by Patrick Brice. This film follows a group of high school teenagers who find themselves being targeted by a masked killer who wears the face of his victims before murdering them. As the killer begins to reveal their classmates’ deepest secrets at school, the teens must find the killer’s identity before becoming their next victim.
Spooky season is in full swing, and with films like Army of the Dead and the Fear Street trilogy, Netflix has given us plenty of excellent horror content this year. But now that Halloween is looming upon us once again, it is time for more of the chills, thrills, and kills that come with the scariest time of the year. As we wait with bated breath for the upcoming slasher sequel, Halloween Kills, we are getting an original slasher that premiered at Fantastic Fest and is now getting its Netflix debut. Fortunately, this movie is the appetizer that will stimulate our tastes for horror as we watch much more spine-chilling films later in the year.
This movie was a welcome revisit to a genre of horror that peaked before the 2000s. We have elements of this film that may remind some of I Know What You Did Last Summer, even down to the title that doubles as an entire sentence, but we also have a wry sense of humor that occasionally works its way throughout the film. It successfully updates the slasher genre for the modern era. The genre has always had majority-white ensemble casts, but the leading characters in this film are very diverse and feel like real people. The film also deals with cancel culture and has its moments of preachiness that feel as if writer Henry Gayden read the room a bit too well and crammed ideas into a slasher without taking the proper time to tackle these issues.
The film can also feel like a throwback to the slashers of the ’90s, with an opening kill scene reminiscent of Drew Barrymore’s iconic opening death in Scream. Fortunately, the movie was unafraid to go hard-R with the kills, leading to a blood-splattering slasher that does not shy away from showcasing its violence. As far as Brice’s direction of the sequences, it is decent. He doesn’t do anything particularly inventive with his camerawork and composition, nor does he resort to cheap jump scares. Parts of the film feel inspired by moments in other movies, and while the direction could have been better, it could have been much worse.
The characters are another mixed bag. Some of the characters, such as Alexandra (Asjha Cooper), do terrible things, such as bullying a classmate and calling him a school shooter. Some time is spent developing their relationships, but the film may have benefitted from delving more into them, especially since the premise surrounds the dark secrets people carry. Easily the best character of the film is the protagonist, Makani Young (Sydney Parker). She has a secret that she harbors and the way the film slowly reveals her backstory is one of the movie’s better ideas. The movie does a great job of tying her backstory into the main events, with a few fun moments of classic slasher.
Parts of the film can feel like a charmless retread of superior films, and other parts can feel tonally off from the rest of the movie. Parts can feel hokey, and the final twist as we reveal who the killer is will surprise some, but the reveal does not ultimately amount to anything satisfying. It can feel as if the film is simply going through the motions of a fun slasher but isn’t entirely where it should be.
Ultimately, There’s Someone Inside Your House offers just enough entertainment to give fans of the slasher genre what they are looking for. The film doesn’t reinvent the genre, nor does it do anything we haven’t seen before, but it is a decent, serviceable way to spend 90 minutes. There are much better options out there, but if you’ve exhausted the genre, it won’t kill you to add this to your Netflix queue.
SCORE: 6/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 6 equates to “Decent.” It fails to reach its full potential and is a run-of-the-mill experience.
