[Fantastic Fest 2021 Review] There's Someone Inside Your House Needed a Better Script

Even though the killers in Scream suggest that it’s scarier if there’s no motive, the truth is that, to me at least, slashers live and die on the killer’s motivations and the surprises that unfold. It’s like with drag queens: it’s all about the reveals. Slasher fans live for those moments that upset expectations and can paint the previous 90 minutes in new light. You can trace the line from slashers to the mystery subgenre, from Psycho and the works of Agatha Christie to the Italian gialli. While the modern slasher ups the body counts and paints imaginative sequences and set pieces red, a good central mystery can elevate an otherwise tropey slasher pic to something more interesting. That’s the problem at the heart of There’s Someone Inside Your House, a Netflix adaptation of the young adult novel of the same name by Stephanie Perkins: It fails to develop a meaningful mystery.

Like most slashers, Patrick Brice’s film opens on a kill. In this case, it’s Jackson (Markian Tarasiuk), a high school football player from Nebraska who arrives at his farmhouse to take a nap before the big game. Walking through his empty house, he pauses on an egg timer that’s ticking away, but his bed calls to him, so he ignores its implications. When he awakens, it’s night. He’s overslept. His cell phone is missing and the egg timer is dinging on his nightstand. Late for the game, he rushes out of his house only to discover the front door is wide open and his truck is missing. He does the sensible thing and hurries back inside, locking the door behind him. But the mischievous title pops up on the screen with a knowing finality:

There’s Someone Inside Your House, indeed.

And they’ve (somehow in the time it's taken for him to go downstairs and see his missing car) littered his home with pictures of him at a party that tell a story of their own. One in which a hazing ritual turned violent and bloody. As Jackson wanders confused and increasingly angry through his house, the killer, wearing a 3D-printed mask of Jackson’s face, shows up and slashes his Achilles heels before murdering him. At the game, phones light up with pictures and proof of Jackson’s vile hazing ritual. It’s a warning: Someone knows the high schoolers darkest secrets and wants to expose them. 

From here, the film introduces the main cast, including Makani (Sydney Park), a student who transferred to Nebraska with a criminal past she wants to keep hidden; Rodrigo (Diego Josef), who’s in love with Alex (Asjha Cooper), the “bitch in residency”; the non-binary Darby (Jesse LaTourette), who desperately wants a fellowship program to get them out of the closed-minded town; Caleb (Burkely Duffield), the gay footballer who was tormented in the hazing ritual; and Zach (Dale Whibley), the son of the most hated person in town. This little ragtag group is a modern representation of the tropes we typically see in slasher films, from the clowns to the jerks to the smart ones and the stoners. While the main cast is refreshingly diverse, the queer characters are often side-lined for Makani’s own fears and her secret relationship with the school’s black sheep Oliver (Théodore Pellerin). 

There’s Someone Inside Your House is a movie built on secrets, but unfortunately none of the secrets are particularly juicy and none of the characters are given much...well, character. Makani’s relationship and criminal past is the main thrust of the narrative, but her relationship with Oliver lacks any chemistry or necessary intimacy. Théodore’s wooden portrayal feels miscast as he’s unable to bring any dimension to the one note character. So much time is spent on this vanilla relationship and the film desperately wants him to be a red herring that it’s so obviously not him. The rest of the cast equally devolves into red herrings and body counts (which is shockingly low through most of the film). What little bits of characterization they’re given is based around wanting to hook up with people and less about being real people. 

The actual set pieces are nicely established and shot, they just are few and far between. Additionally, There’s Someone In Your House forgets that we must care about the characters for their stalking to be meaningful. A bloody stalk and slash in a church, for instance, creates some bloody fun...but the fact the character is a secret racist and alt right troll deflates any tension. It’s not until one of the main group’s characters gets targeted that the film can create any sense of fear and by then, we’re cresting towards the midpoint. 

There’s Someone Inside Your House is mostly well-acted and Patrick Brice (Creep) has a fantastic visual eye that references the 90s high school-set slasher boom. Little Nebraskan details pop in the background and cinematographer Jeff Cutter (10 Cloverfield Lane, Orphan, Eli) gives the film a stylish and cool tone that evokes the slashers of yesteryear it wants to emulate. It’s just the narrative that doesn’t feel particularly well written. A quick WIkipedia perusal shows that Henry Gayden (Shazam!)’s script takes significant liberties with Stephanie Perkins’ novel and diverges in particular ways towards the back half. That’s also where the movie begins to nosedive, with a boring climax and a reveal that left me thinking, “That’s it?” In a year that’s given us fun twists on the subgenre, from Freaky to Initiation to Fear Street, Netflix’s latest foray into the subgenre doesn’t hold muster.

There’s Someone Inside Your House has a good setup with some likable, if flimsy, characters, and one or two inspired kill sequences, but the payoff hits like a dud.