A slow burn atmospheric horror all set in one location will always be something I enjoy. This has an interesting story about ghosts in houses, a conflict between souls that are at rest and those that aren't. There could have been a bit more payoff. Most slow burn horror movies at least give you some kind of hint or some kind of reward in the middle of the movie to keep you interested. This is one where nothing really happens until the very end which sets up on of the best scares in any movie I've seen. The ending is still something I can't interpret entirely. The premise is basic but the actual explanation is almost as complicated as some of the poetic quotes said by characters throughout the film. Oz Perkins, as he done in his other movies is a master at making one setting feel like a character in his movies and this is no exception.
Retired horror writer Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss) gets a live in nurse Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson) to care for her as Iris is now bedridden with dementia. Early on weird things start happening like the phone being wrenched out of Lily's hands by an unseen force. A woman in a white dress is seen walking backwards throughout the house. Black mold is seen coming from one particular corner in the walkway. Iris keeps calling Lily, "Polly." The estate manager, Mr. Waxcap eventually explains that Polly was a character from Iris' most popular book, "The Lady in the Walls." Later Lily finds a box containing many different copies of drafts of Iris' story.
There are many different things Perkins' does in this to keep the atmosphere up. The first night I enjoy the suspense as you first see the phone cord get lifted off the ground, then a cut to the darkness, the phone cord gets more and more uncurled and then more cuts to the darkness before it is finally yanked from Lily's hand. The way he will show the blurry shots of the ghost through certain parts of the wall is an interesting way of showing you can't physically locate the ghost but you know it is there. There is a great shot where you see the woman in white follow Lily but both of them walking is blocked out by a wall between two rooms and then you finally see Lily. Perkins did this well in The Blackcoat's Daughter as well where he would put the camera certain places and block shots certain ways to enhance suspense and only reveal certain things. Other things happen in the house such as one part of the rug always being pulled up and bangs coming from certain places in the wall to give a bigger feeling of supernatural.
Spoiler Section
Allow me to share two quotes from the movie that I think can be interpreted to explain what this movie is trying to do and the ending.
Iris, about Polly: "You had so much to say in those first years. When you lived here with me. Enough to fill a book. And then... nothing. You turned your back. You turned your back, and you turned your back so many times... that soon your feet were facing the wrong way altogether. And I had to watch you come into a room... back to front. I did nothing but sit and listen. I made no noises. I welcomed no visitors. And here, now, you've come back. But only to hurt me, only to show yourself, but not to let me see. You hardly resemble yourself. You poor, pretty things whose prettiness holds only one guarantee. Learn to see yourself as the rest of the world does, and you'll keep. But left alone, with only your own eyes looking back at you, and even the prettiest things rot. You fall apart like flowers"
This movie never has an established time to its setting. Polly's story seems to take in the early 1800s. How could Iris have known Polly except in ghost form? It's impossible. I think this has something to do with aging. As soon as Polly sees Iris aging she may want to age herself. If she is a ghost can she age? Perhaps it is the other way around as Iris gets older and sees Polly not aging and wishes she could be the same way. I'm not sure if any of this is true it just seems like a disconnect between a ghost and how people age while the other can't. It could also have something to with Polly never actually telling Iris the full truth or may she was holding Iris hostage in the house she didn't have to be the ghost there anymore.
Lily: "I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living. It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind. To go back and forth, letting out and gathering back in again. Worrying over the floors in confused circles. Tending to their deaths like patchy, withered gardens. They have stayed to look back for a glimpse of the very last moments of their lives. But the memories of their own deaths are faces on the wrong side of wet windows, smeared by rain. Impossible to properly see. There is nothing that chains them to the places where their bodies have fallen. They are free to go, but still they confine themselves, held in place by their looking. For those who have stayed, their prison is their never seeing. And left all alone, this is how they rot."
These quotes are very poetic and the narrative by Lily gives this movie an ominous tone. You know something is going to happen to her from the beginning narration. What Lily is talking about can mean a number of things. Polly haunts the house but doesn't want anyone to have a good life there because either of the way she died or because of that her soul cannot move on. Her husband bludgeons her to death and hides her body in that section of the wall that now has the mold. It would seem that Lily figured this out and because she dies of a heart attack while seeing Polly, she died a natural death. Her soul is now free to haunt the house yet because she died while not having rage like Lily and understanding the house she will protect people who come to it rather than haunt them. She figured out what happened to Iris and that makes her free. That is my best interpretation. Another way of thinking about it is she actually died from the mold in the house and her seeing Polly is what finally allows her to pass on and she becomes the ghost in the house or it is all one big loop. They need something to keep them happy or they just rot. Iris gave Polly company until Polly either wanted more company or Iris started losing her mental capacity to keep her there. Since Lily died in a much happier place in her life or sane part without any rage she doesn't feel the need to feed off of families that come in. Since there are so many things to talk about in such a simple movie that adds to the enjoyment for me. That jump scare at the end where Lily finally sees Polly is a reward for such a slow burn.
Rating: 8/10
Trivia: The movie that plays on the TV that Lily watches is a movie starring Anthony Perkins called Friendly Persuasion. Anthony Perkins is the director, Oz Perkins' father.
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