Written by: Ryan Dailey
There’s Someone Inside Your House is as paint-by-numbers as teen slashers can get. An ensemble cast of twenty-somethings portray high school students that are dealing with all of the teenage angst flair. Daddy issues, drugs, dating and being different. The film is adapted from Stephanie Perkin’s novel, which is a misleading title, as most of the kills take place in places that are not a house. The movie is as though Scream 1996 was written during Covid, BLM or #metoo.
TSIYH is not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the opposite. With quotable dialog and performances that are sometimes spot on and sometimes just terrible, it has all of the ingredients to become someone’s comfort movie.
The main take-away from this film is that it tries to be about how we all wear proverbial masks. That is a great trope, tried and true, yet hard to pull off with a movie full of two dimensional characters.
The film is an adaptation of Stephanie Perkins’ novel, which it follows to a degree, once the filmmakers get past introducing their “It’s a Small World” cast of diversity. Much like with a vast majority of novel to film adaptations. The book is definitely a better experience.
TISIYH balances mediocrity and holding the viewer’s attention on such a thin line that one may have their hand on the remote, ready to stop the film and then something happens where said finger instead hovers over the button, the owner of said finger struggling with an internal struggle to continue or not.
This reviewer put the remote down and finished the journey.
There is Someone Inside Your House is currently streaming on Netflix.