Patrick Brice’s teenage film, “There’s Someone Inside Your House,” attempts to both update and bow to a genre that peaked decades ago. But in trying to have it both ways, Brice has created a messy parody crammed with moral police that wastes the promise of his expertly executed overture.
This sequence, brilliant in its simplicity (and the only one to really justify the title of the film), shows the murder of a high school quarterback who brutally confused a gay teammate. No sooner has the deceased’s homophobia been broadcast to stunned students than their racist president is also struck. As the murders – and, arguably more terrifyingly, the online exhibitions – continue, the film looks from the perspective of a social outcast clique led by Makani (Sydney Park, alternating between dazed and unhappy), a college student. transferred with a traumatic past.
Set in a small town in Nebraska and adapted from the novel of the same name by Stephanie Perkins, Henry Gayden’s screenplay chokes on intangible intrigues – like the privatization of the police and the evils of the agribusiness – and bland characters. The only star is Theodore Pellerin as the prime suspect and Makani’s secret link: dancing on the line between scary and sexy, Pellerin never misses a step.
The same can’t be said of a story that, disastrously, allows Makani’s barely relevant personal issues to wash those of the killer off the screen. They also muffle the more clever touches of the plot, like a party where students anticipate an attack by confessing their darkest secrets. Or the killer’s habit of wearing masks that resemble each victim’s face, which literally makes them the victims of their own actions. It’s the best joke in the movie.
There is someone in your house
Unclassified. Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
