The Beach House (2020)

Director: Jeffrey A. Brown

Writer: Jeffery A. Brown

Cast: Liana Liberato, Noah Le Gros, Jake Weber, Maryann Nagel

Horror is a genre that can easily thrive when sitting on either side of the spectrum of camp. Whether the movie is as campy as the slashers of the 1980s or as serious and dark as many of this era’s ghost stories, horror has a way of making its mark no matter how the story is presented. That’s the true beauty of the genre. The Beach House is a film presented somewhere in the middle of that spectrum; a marriage of campy homages to classic Lovecraftian creature feature and body horror sub-genres, and the minimalist darkness of modern indie haunting stories that taps into a couple of phobias that most, if not all, of us can relate to.

The Beach House, an original film by Shudder, tells the story of Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall’s (Noah De Gros) vacation to a secluded beach house that takes a turn for the disturbing when they encounter infectious creatures that are taking over the quiet coastal town. It’s reminiscent of Lovecraftian imagery — the creatures really could have been plucked from the man’s mind — and is a hodgepodge of many different sub-genres that get melded together to become one. It was like writer/director Jeffrey A. Brown — on his debut feature film — took zombies, monsters, and body horror, then let the Blob loose upon them.

At first, this was a tough watch. It seemed to work better as a short film and there wasn’t enough meat in this story to carry itself as a feature, but there indeed are a few layers here at play, a few fears that will affect each viewer differently depending upon who is watching. There are some people who are legitimately afraid of the beach because of the animals that live there — crabs in the sand beneath us and the myriad of animals living in the water in which we tread. This is the most blatant fear this movie touches upon, as it shows Emily spotting a group of these creatures lined up at the shore. This element was an effective tribute to old creature features and zombie flicks. The beings are infectious and slowly deteriorate their victims as they spread from one host to another, which brings me to the body horror aspect. For many, seeing people being digested by a big pink blob or going through a stomach-turning transformation into a fly as we see in The Blob and The Fly respectively, doesn’t prompt them to think too much about why or what is responsible for the agony. They’re fighting the urge to look away from the carnage that the body is going through and feeling grateful that it’s not happening to them. The same feeling comes with The Beach House. It wasn’t on the same scale as the aforementioned examples (more on why soon) but it did accomplish what it set out to do. It was satisfying — the subtle nostalgia that Brown was able to bring while maintaining his own minimalist tone.

All that nostalgia is great and all, but no movie can stand out by reminding us about other movies. That’s where The Beach House hits a snag. While it has its layers when it comes to premise, it falls a bit short in execution. There were some real opportunities to make us care for Emily and Randall and we’re not given the time of day. There was tension between the two leads that put them in a funk from which they never really shook, so when it came time to face peril, it fell a bit flat. However, the minimalist method in which this film was presented did help with the snag. It really is all about the slow burn and claustrophobia it delivered so effectively. It also makes for one particular scene to be sure to stick with you for a while. The gore that wasn’t really all that gory punched harder and was more squirm-inducing than expected, all because everything around it was shrouded in a muted cool color palette and surrounded by shots that weren’t consistent with the scene’s close ups. It was that style that sets it apart from the body horror pioneers and while effective in its own right, it didn’t quite stand up to the legends, but that’s okay. The Beach House had enough up its sleeve to be just fine.

The Beach House is a fun, nostalgic movie that places us into a section of our comfort zones that is both familiar and uneasy. The elements that make up this piece make it a movie for horror fans, and those who aren’t fans of the genre may not enjoy it as much, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t deserve a chance.

The Beach House is available on Shudder.