The Beach House (2019)

The movie starts with a high overhead shot of aquamarine water, and zooms down beneath the waves to something cloudy spurting from a crack in a rocky wall at the ocean’s bottom. We are told via music cues that this is ominous. The movie ends, if you were to play this scene backwards (dialogue excepted) with a high overhead shot of aquamarine water, tracking down to a beach and then a woman lying on her back on the beach, rocking slightly and saying over and over to herself, or possibly to the audience (since she’s speaking directly into the camera), “Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared.”

Meanwhile, I was wishing I had been.

Between those far too on-the-nose bookends, The Beach House is actually okay, if you go for flicks that are a cross between The Mist and Reefer Madness with a touch of body horror thrown in. A couple goes to, you know, a beach house, only to discover uninvited guests are also staying there. But none of these people are me, because they make friends and hang out getting stoned. But then a weird glowy (or high-induced?) fog rolls in, and shit gets real.

Except that phrase implies big actiony setpieces, whereas this was definitely slow and creepy, even in the glaring light of day. If they hadn’t tried so hard in the first and last scenes, I would have come away with a more positive overall impression.

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