I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)

“I remember thinking that it felt like Fall would never come. And then… it never did.“

Another exclusive Netflix offering, a ghost story with a quite promising description:

“A nervous nurse who scares easily finds herself caring for an ailing horror novelist while living in a house with hidden secrets.”

Ok Netflix, you’ve got my attention. This film also popped up on a few ‘best of’ horror lists. This one is a can’t miss! Right?

Wrong.

The fact that this could even be considered a ghost story is laughable. Most of the movie I found myself staring at long drawn out shots of nothing, while the lead actor was doing voiceover. What is this? An audiobook? Is this the actors attempt to score her big break narrating for BBC? Even with a run time of only 89 minutes, I truly struggled to finish this. I even had to stop and come back to it another day. That’s rare for me. I hoped there was going to at least be a big pay off at the end, but alas that was not the case. I imagine the writer was pretty proud of himself thinking he had the perfect twist and callback to earlier in the film, but I’d be surprised if most viewers even noticed it. This is the same writer/director who did The Blackcoat’s Daughter in 2015, another film that had buzz in the horror world. I still haven’t seen that, but after watching this latest effort I don’t think I’m going to be making it a priority any time soon. I did jump once, about halfway through the film. That’s the only thing saving this from the dreaded goose egg rating. Instead I give it 0.5 out of 5. In a twist on a quote from the movie: ‘It felt like the plot would never develop. And then…it never did.’