There's Someone Inside Your House (Movie Review)

Screened as a part of the 2021 Fantastic Fest.

You turn on Netflix and are immediately greeted by a banner ad for a new horror movie. There’s Someone Inside Your House. Sounds creepy, you think, as you nervously glance behind you. It also sounds vaguely familiar. Wasn’t there a popular YA book with that title a few years ago? It must be based on that. You hit play.

The first scene is pretty cool. There’s a football teen who comes home to an empty house. Or does he? Of course not! It’s right there in the title. He finds clues that There’s Someone Inside His [sic] House and whoever it is seems upset with him over an incident of bullying. He makes some bad slasher movie victim decisions and ends up getting slashed. The killer is wearing a mask of the football teen’s face. Oh damn, that’s cool!

The opening credits roll and you see somebody making more masks by importing yearbook pictures into a 3D printing program. Whoa, is the killer always going to wear a mask of the person they’re killing? Such a cool idea. You also notice that the movie is directed by the guy who made the Creep movies. And produced by James Wan. Awesome! You don’t care what anybody says, you know that Malignant is a minor modern masterpiece.

As things get started you’re introduced to the main characters, a scruffy Scooby gang-ish collection of high school weirdos and outcasts. Hey, is that some thoughtful representation of a trans character? That’s cool. They also straight up borrowed the premise of Grease--the main character had a summer fling with a weird boy who she’s no longer talking to now that school started. It’s ok though, because they totally lampshade it by mentioning Grease. As the movie goes on you can see some clear teen movie influences. There’s a little Heathers, a little John Hughes. And of course a ton of Scream. Not super original, but it’s entertaining enough. It actually reminds you a lot of Fear Street. Is this a thing now? Is Netflix going hard in the paint for 90s retro Scream-style slashers?

You are impressed with some of the kills, but as the movie goes on, the initial excitement you had in the first act starts to wane. It gets a little convoluted as backstories come out and red herrings are planted and debunked. When the killer finally gets revealed, it feels like a bit of a shrug. Overall it’s fine for a Friday night Netflix movie and it’s very likely that your friends who are more into throwback slashers than you will probably really dig it. Your biggest gripe, though, is that the thing that caught your eye about this movie, that glorious title, is hardly ever applicable. In fact, there are only a scant few times in the course of the movie when someone is indeed inside anyone else’s house. Someone is in your church and your school and your corn maze, but sadly, someone is only very rarely in your house. You make a mental note to remember to mention this when you write your review.