The Beach House is a 2020 horror-thriller about a young couple who become embroiled in a mysterious ecological outbreak when something deadly begins infecting them and the other guests of a secluded beach house.
When college sweethearts Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall (Noah Le Gros) arrive at an unnamed coastal little New England town in writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown’s The Beach House there’s a strangeness in the air. Slow, deliberate, camera work and a chilling, nautically tinged score, reminiscent of fog horns and phantom pirate ships, set that aesthetic from the very opening shots.
The charming seaside cottages are vacant. The streets are barren of cars and people. And, the silence, other than the ocean waves crashing on the shore, is oppressive. As the camera slowly pans over the vastness of the ocean and the ghost town, the overwhelming emptiness may as well be a character entirely.
From the moment Emily and Randall step out of the car, we, and they know it: this ill-fated trip is a mistake. Instead of being a serene seaside escape, the seclusion is distinctly unnerving. It’s off-putting enough that even Randall hurriedly tells Emily, “The season doesn’t really start until Memorial Day,” in a desperate attempt to make up for what will, unfortunately, prove to be the biggest blunder of his life.
The weekend getaway, Randall dreamt up, a sunny vacation to Randall’s father’s beach house that was meant to reignite the couple’s passion and mend their fraying relationship backfires before it can even begin. The beach house, as it turns out, already has guests: an aging couple, Mitch Turner (Jake Weber), and his wife Jane (Maryann Nagel). Friends of Randall’s father the good-natured Turners are overjoyed by the chance to connect with the young couple, oblivious to their fractured relationship.
The night starts off promising enough, though. The Turners share their favorite memories of vacationing at the beach house, including plenty of embarrassing memories of young “Randy”. Emily enthusiastically talks about her dream to study astrobiology, and all the while, the wine flows free and fast.
It’s after Randall breaks out the weed-laced chocolates and the foursome indulge in the edibles, that a strangeness begins to descend. An ominous foul-smelling fog fills the air, particles thicker than snowflakes begin to cling to the surfaces of the trees and the house, and Jane soon becomes violently ill.
As the phenomena intensifies, and the symptoms afflicting Jane not only worsen, but also begin to affect Randall, Emily springs into action, wracking her brain and using her wits to not only survive whatever ecological hellscape is opening up around her, but to make sure Randall makes it out alive too.
When a film has such a limited cast, in this case, just four characters, every performance matters. Here’s what sets The Beach House apart from some of its counterparts. Brown takes the time to truly introduce us to Emily. Without being bogged down by heavy exposition the slow-burn pacing and carefully crafted script gradually peel back the layers to show us who she is, what she wants, and what drives her.
Exceptionally bright and scientifically minded, Emily has big plans for her future. She wants to go to grad school to become an astrobiologist and has enough pluck and passion to do it. It’s these qualities that also subtly clue us in on her inevitable fate as “the final girl”. Even before we reach the point of no return, when the virulent contagion descends upon the entire town we know that The Beach House isn’t really just about the broken relationship between a couple. It’s ultimately Emily’s story.
Le Gros and Liberato ease right into the dysfunction and strain between their characters with such effectiveness and efficiency, it feels as though we already know this couple. It’s as though we’ve known them for years and have slowly been watching their relationship decline.
Just as thoughtfully as its characters are presented, The Beach House takes an equally deliberate, and different, approach to its visual narrative than the typical horror film. In the first ten minutes, moody colors, excruciating stillness, and a powerfully silent emotive performance from Liberato’s Emily, The Beach House stages itself as a tragedy. You could almost hear mournful and plaintive moans carrying in the salty sea breeze.
That stylistic-ness and aesthetic carries over to the use of long, wide, stationary, shots. They reinforce how large and vacant the beach and town are, magnifying Emily’s (and our) mounting unease and anxieties. Consider one moment in particular. It’s so seemingly small and understated that it borders on genre-defying. One of the main characters slowly and single-mindedly wades out into the gently lapping blue waters of the ocean. But here’s the twist.
As the ocean grows vaster and vaster and more vacant, that character continues on, and on, and on. Until their head smoothly vanishes from sight under the water, without even a ripple. All the while Emily watches, frozen in place as the horrific realization slowly dawns on her face.
It’s a scene that’s far more unsettling and even rattling, than the McScares that bombard so many mass-produced horror films. There’s no need for jump scares, ghoulish CGI monsters, or yet another demonically possessed nun here. A well-calibrated combination of camerawork, practical effects, and Liberato’s jarring performance is all it takes for us to be swept up in a tidal wave of terror.
The team behind The Beach House’s practical effects deserves more than a few rounds of applause! About an hour into the film, there’s no shortage of gruesome visuals, creepy creatures, or scream-worthy body horror. It’s not gratuitous, but it is enough to make you lose your popcorn… so, pro tip: maybe skip the snacks while watching this one.
These nightmarish monstrosities are so realistic that it doesn’t take much to sear their image in your mind for even days after watching the film. One particularly unforgettable creation? The goopy, fleshy creatures that wash up on the shore. They almost look like pulverized human remains or internal organs turned inside out and blasted into goo.
In direct defiance to the shaky-camera franticness of many recent horror flicks, The Beach House doesn’t rush to its ending. Brown and the rest of the filmmakers behind The Beach House carefully arrange the major plot points like a trail of dominoes, parceling out little gruesome details, and odd happenings: there’s a fog that reek of sewage. Thick, mucousy slime and gritty black chunks that spurt out with the tap water. And, at the very beginning, and easy enough to miss if you’re not focused on the screen, a revolting slug writhing on the beach house’s front porch.
It’s only until all these horrible incidents cumulate in a spectacularly effective display of body horror on the part of Liberato’s anguished Emily, that the tipping point comes, and the full chaos of The Beach House’s horror is unleashed. And, for all its gut-wrenching grotesqueness, and heartbreaking tragedy, we can’t help but be swept up in a disturbing thrill, and almost excitement, to see just what happens next. Highly recommended.