In general, Netflix movies either tend to pull their punches or shoot for the moon, which has lead to an unsurprising level of inconsistency in the quality of their movies. For every expensive middle-of-the-road comedy spy movie they churn out, there’s a low-budget, sci-fi/thriller that attempts to tackle an ambitious concept like setting the entire film in an oxygen chamber or having the lead character paralysed by a sinister drug for the duration.
Well, with Louis Leterrier’s The Last House, we find Netflix dipping it’s toes into both, with a M. Night Shyamalam-lite story that traps it’s central family within their house for the entirety of its story, but still aims to tackle some big budget thrills while it does so. But does that mean that the streaming giant has delivered something quite special, or merely just another deluge of disposable slop? Strangely, it’s actually kinda both…
We are introduced to a family of four who all seem to be reasonably close and drama-free despite the fact that Jason is an out of work engineer who is struggling to find employment. As a result, his wife, Riley, and his kids, twelve year-old Graham and eight year-old Ruth, have been trying to pull together to make things work, but adding to their daily stress is the fact that the foundations of their house seems to be crumbling and it’s entire structure needs a costly renovation. However, all of these down-to-earth issues are suddenly rendered obsolete with the arrival of a mysterious rain that somehow manages to seal everyone in the neighbourhood within their houses with no way of breaking out.
Before you can say “lockdown metaphor”, the family have discovered that nothing – not even beating on their windows with a poker – can break the web of living H²0 that’s ensnared their abode and there’s nothing else for it but to hunker down, ration food and try to communicate with the neighbours until this all blows over. However, it doesn’t blow over, and as the days turn into weeks and the weeks stretch even further, the family realise that not only is help not coming, but whatever that is manipulating the rain obviously has no intention of letting anyone out until everyone – and I do mean everyone – has died of thirst, starvation, or some other malady connected with being entombed in your house indefinitely.
With his engineer brain cooking and his family counting on him, Jason gets to work coming up with ways to get more food into the house, while Riley tries to figure out how to grow crops if she digs up the floor. Thanks to a crack in the foundation of the chimney, it seems there’s a narrow gap to play with that isn’t been sealed off by the creepy smart-rain that gives this desperate unit a chance none of their neighbours have. But as time winds ever on, will existing be enough, or will a stand eventually have to occur against their unseen, watery jailers?
On one hand, The Last House is something of a breath of fresh air. Undeniably ambitious, it manages to wriggle past its various riffs on past films like 10 Cloverfield Lane and A Quiet Place to deliver an experience that has quite a lot to say. There’s a lot of ideas here, all bubbling to the surface simultaneously but not all of them appear fully formed, also, if you avoided the rather overzealous trailer, there’s some genuine surprises here that genuinely succeed at catching you off balance, but not all of them work. The central notion of a family sealed within their own house during the Christmas period by an otherworld force initially sounds uncomfortably similar to Johnny Kevorkian’s 2018, sci-fi chiller, Await Further Instructions; but while that movie was content to throw a socially conscious brick at tenuous family relations that saw them fracture into violence almost immediately, Letterier’s The Last House instead carries a surprisingly more chilled tone.
There’s still the shock of the initial imprisonment, the stress as the enormity of the situation sets in, and the threat of the slippery, ocean-dwelling beings that seem to have launched the most patience dependent invasion I’ve ever seen, but to ape the rather bewildered acceptance we all felt during the isolation of COVID, we follow the family as they realise they have nothing else left to do except try and make the best of their situation. It’s a rather interesting choice to make and it’s one likely to make fans of more aggressive survival movies shuffle impatiently in their seat, but there’s something oddly zen about watching the family alter their daily existence towards something more insular (no Internet and only DVDs of Annie and Air Force One to watch seems to be the greatest argument for owning physical media I’ve seen in yonks) and balanced.
However, while Letterier continuously alters the family’s outlook depending on how grim their situation is looking, the expanded time frame and episodic nature suggests that Matthew Robinson’s screenplay may have been better served by being an eight-episode series rather than a two-hour feature. Varied strains on the family’s relationship and numerous puzzles and problems they have to solve are intercut with numerous bonding moments and it’s tough to get much of a grasp on many of these issues as they swoosh past in order to facilitate the flick’s most audacious plot twist – a surprise, gargantuan time jump that attempts to fully drive home the longevity of this predicament.
It’s a ballsy move, and it’s certainly more successful than the addition of tentacle-faced, Lovecraftian sea monsters who seem to suggest that either Cthulhu makes house calls or Bill Nighy’s Davey Jones has been getting bizzay in the time since Pirates 3. The design of the beasts are cool and all, and the fact they’re mostly realised practically is a plus, but if feels like one wrinkle too many for a film that seems to be changing it’s central message with every shifting passage of time.
The cast do well with what they’ve got, and it’s nice to see a varied cast such as Civil War’s Wagner Moura and Toy Story 5’s Greta Lee get to carry a film, but Leterrier’s insistance to bounce from social commentary to monster attacks somewhat cancel each other out, as does the pendulous swings between hope and despair. One second, it seems that the importance of family is the main thrust of the film, but later still, the script punches as many cracks in this notion as there are spreading around the house itself – but for the most part, the internal world that Leterrier creates as his characters keep adapting to their problems and changing their surroundings proves to deliver some of the best set design of the year.
Flooded with ideas, but seemingly unable to pick just one to expand on, The Last House experiences something of an ebb and flow of quality as it’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mindset constantly overflows with malevolent rain water. With the influx of tension, social commentary, familial relationships, survival thrills and bloody great sea monsters lunging at you with their tentacle-faces, The Last House tends to feel a little over stuffed. But at least it has something to say – even if frequently loses focus.
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