Digital Review: ‘The Beach House’

Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall (Noah Le Gros) are college sweethearts in desperate need of time to reconnect. After deciding the best place to do this is at Randall’s father’s beach house, they head there for a weekend retreat. Their idyllic vacation is interrupted however, by Mitch (Jake Weber) and Jane (Maryann Nagel), an older couple whom are friends with Randall’s father. After a short discussion, they reach the conclusion that the house is big enough for both couples and unexpected bonds form as they let loose. Events soon take an ominous turn though as an increasingly strange environmental phenomena begins to warp their peaceful evening. The next morning, effects of an infection start to materialise and the pair struggle to make sense of the strange contagion before it’s too late.

The Beach House is a film of two very distinctive and different narrative halves. The first half is a slow and serine study of relationships floundering at a crossroads. Both Emily and Randall appear to have contrasting ideas about the direction in which they are headed, and it would still have been interesting to see a film that purely centred on this plot point. This isn’t what writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown had in mind though as he pulls the rug out from under the audience and sends the narrative careening down a twisted hybrid of science-fiction apocalypse and body horror. It’s a jolt to the system, but the juxtaposition of both sides compliment each other in a yin yang fashion. The inclusion of the science-fiction elements of the story arrive later than in your typical movie of this kind, and yet it still works. Were this second story strand to begin earlier, you’d lose the focus from our core couple, which would mean that we ultimately wouldn’t invest as much in them, and their survival. Here, we’re rooting for Emily and Randall from the second that strange things start occurring and our bond with them leads to some unexpectedly emotional moments.

During the Covid-19 pandemic there have been a slew of films that have dealt with unexpected viruses, outbreaks, and world-ending disasters. Films such as Blood Quantum, Sea Fever, and now The Beach House, offer an eerie mirror of the climate in which we find ourselves living today, and yet they were made pre-pandemic. It’s a tricky thing to get your head around as for the most part they seem to have accurately guessed how some people genuinely have reacted to a similar event in real-life. Often when watching genre films that deal with killer viruses, parasites, parallel dimension mist monsters etc., you find yourself commenting that people wouldn’t do x, y and z. For example, in The Mist we used to think no one would buy into crazy Mrs. Carmody, and yet just look at all the people whom believe that Covid-19 is a result of 5G internet. Watching a film of this ilk in a post virus world, you reassess and find yourself instead commenting that things aren’t wild enough. That’s certainly the case at times during The Beach House; there is of course pandemonium, it’s just a lot more tapered back than we have had to live through.

What makes The Beach House stand apart is its ability to keep the viewer guessing what is going on. It all begins simply enough with some strange mist over water – we’ve all seen The Mist (or should have all seen it) and know what’s going to happen, but no, that’s not the direction it takes. Characters appear to not quite be themselves – again we’ve all seen this movie – and yet once again Brown keeps us on our toes. There are several other instances of ‘it’s clearly going to be this’, but then it transpires to be something else, which all serve to keep the story fresh and exciting. In many ways, this constant misdirection is reminiscent of Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon, which pointed to all manner of creepy things in the woods before revealing the truth. It’s not an easy thing to pull off in modern film-making, and Brown should be commended for his skills as a magician of storytelling.

Owen Levelle’s cinematography is another point worthy of praise. The film is told through a very natural colour palette; think sandy browns, marine blues, and crisp whites, reinforcing the beach vibe and setting. By using these colour tones, everything on screen has that beach house feel, so even when we aren’t in the house, we subconsciously feel that we’re still inside it. It’s a clever move and one that demonstrates that a great amount of thought has gone into every moment of the film’s 88 minute run-time. There’s also some nice subtleties in the camera movement. For example, when we first meet Emily and Randal, the shots are fairly still and rigid, but as they and start to loosen up the camera also becomes more freestyle and handheld. There’s an instance where both couples are talking after dinner, and the camera bobs and weaves around them, a motion that affirms the proximity to the sea, another key component of the story.

As first time features go The Beach House is one of the stronger offerings, with Jeffery A. Brown showcasing an interesting hybrid genre movie that will reel in a wider variety of viewers than it suggests on paper.

The Beach House arrives on Shudder from Thursday 9th July 2020.