The Night House
Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: August 20, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinKim HughesAug 18, 2021
Taken either as a metaphor for mourning or as a straight-up fictional narrative with a paranormal bent, The Night House’s ending is as disturbing — and intriguing — as it gets. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 18, 2021
That energy placed into making the audience look and listen out to the edges of the film makes Beth's central placement even more vital and enthralling; and by moving to The Night House, Hall is finally given the space that every previous performance has shown she deserves. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackAug 23, 2021
It’s elegantly filmed and well constructed, building to a haunting climatic sequence that could sear your eyeballs. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneGuy LodgeAug 23, 2021
Screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski lay the foundations for a conventionally well-built haunted-house chiller. But Bruckner (a V/H/S anthology alumnus who also gave us 2017’s tight little wilderness horror The Ritual) and Hall herself occasionally deviate from the plan, forming something a little more strange and sculptural. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiAug 22, 2021
Uplifted by an incredible central performance by Hall, The Night House twists and turns, weaving terrifying visuals and jump-scares with thought-provoking and emotional story beats. The result makes for one of the best horror-thrillers of the year. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansAug 22, 2021
The fuzzy plotting is balanced by Hall’s brilliantly controlled performance as the caustic, sceptical Beth, whose grief has pushed her to the knife edge of sanity. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 19, 2021
The director, David Bruckner, doesn’t just mindlessly apply the electrodes; even when he jars you to attention, he always seems to be drawing you into something deeper and more atmospheric. He delivers a scare you can sink into. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 19, 2021
As the screenplay teases natural explanations for these sinister goings-on — Extreme grief? Nightmares? Mental illness? — Bruckner maintains a death grip on the film’s mood while his cinematographer, Elisha Christian, turns the home’s reflective surfaces into shape-shifting puzzle pieces. Read full review
79
PolygonKeith PhippsAug 20, 2021
The film weaves a study of what it means to discover you’ve built your life over an abyss into the fabric of a multiplex-friendly horror movie, but it wouldn’t work without Hall’s deft, complex performance. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 26, 2021
Though the bag of tricks that Bruckner (V/H/S, The Ritual) digs through — the jump scares and shadow figures, the eerily suspended rules of gravity and physics — are familiar, he uses them to build a kind of clanging, feverish atmosphere. And British actress Hall (The Gift, Godzilla vs. Kong), tasked with carrying nearly every scene, grounds her performance in more than meat-puppet panic; her unraveling springs from genuine, furious grief. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 19, 2021
The film upends the clichés that practically define the ghost story in surprising and intriguing ways. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 19, 2021
The sounds that go bump in the night, the wet footprints on a dock when no one else should be there, the writing in the fog on a shower mirror—these beats are brilliantly handled by Bruckner and Hall, who understand that uncertainty is the scariest state of being. Especially at night. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 19, 2021
In The Night House, narratively faulty but full of insinuating shivers, Hall once again expands her range. She intensifies what could’ve been just another woman with a flashlight in a haunted house movie, peering into the beyond. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 18, 2021
This is a creepily effective excursion into terror that, if watched alone in the dark, may generate post-movie jitters. It’s a quietly intense alternative to generic horror movies that provides its share of scares without the need to splatter the screen with blood and viscera. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 17, 2021
Warts and all, The Night House is, in the truest sense of the word, kind of haunting. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrAug 17, 2021
Confidently directed by David Bruckner from a clever script written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, The Night House excels in tension building —it is both unpredictable and unnervingly restrained. In other words, you’re rarely at ease for 110 minutes. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangJan 26, 2020
Bruckner’s elegantly crafted film falls some way short of its grandest ambitions, but still sends you out into the night with a chill in your bones and the hairs stiff on the back of your neck. Read full review
70
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaAug 18, 2021
While it may not always pay off the tension it builds, the film’s story — about a woman seeking closure after her husband’s suicide — makes the lingering unknowability of romance feel just as unsettling as any supernatural force. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellAug 17, 2021
The Night House might not stick the landing, but it's an eerie supernatural chiller with an incredible lead performance from Rebecca Hall. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 17, 2021
The destination is a letdown, but the journey there is harrowing and rewarding. Hall’s powerful and affecting performance is the biggest reason why. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJan 26, 2020
The horror on display here is so powerful, and Hall’s work is so strong, that you’re bound to come away from The Night House properly haunted. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 26, 2020
Great horror movies should feel unsafe, but this one just leaves you feeling beaten down. Read full review
65
Paste MagazineLex BriscusoAug 19, 2021
It’s a fun flick and some may still be drawn into The Night House’s mystery, but the film—and everyone at the heart of its conception—have Hall to thank for that. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 17, 2021
Given the chilling mood Bruckner strikes and dark corners he unearths, horror fans will want to spend some time in this Night House even if it’s not worth a long-term investment. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 17, 2021
The Night House serves up the subtle horror of expectations, invites us to join our heroine in fearing the worst, perhaps simply resigned to it. And Hall makes everything we see and that Beth experiences credible, which may be the creepiest thing about it. Read full review
62
TheWrapYolanda MachadoAug 20, 2021
The Night House works as an exploration of grief because of Rebecca Hall’s incredible performance, plain and simple. But as a horror film, it overpromises early on and then fails to deliver on any chills that go beyond a jump scare. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 26, 2021
Rebecca Hall’s admirable refusal to soften the brittle edges of her recently widowed protagonist in The Night House makes her a compelling variation on the usual woman in ghostly peril. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerAug 19, 2021
Although let down by muddled plotting, The Night House is a low-key, well-made thoughtful horror flick, excellently played by Rebecca Hall. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeAug 16, 2021
There are enough crafty surprises buried within The Night House to just about outweigh the elements that don’t work quite as well, mainly because it’s all delivered with such fiery conviction by Hall. The house might be built on shaky foundations but its inhabitant is utterly unshakable. Read full review
60
VarietyDennis HarveyJan 27, 2020
Though this tale of a new widow’s apparent haunting gets progressively lost in a narrative maze that’s complicated without being particularly rewarding, director David Bruckner suffuses the action with enough dread and unpleasant goosings to make this an above-average genre exercise. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeAug 18, 2021
The latest film from The Ritual’s David Bruckner seems to have forgotten that it’s supposed to be a horror movie first and a metaphor second. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 29, 2020
Unfortunately, the script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski is clunky—in the convoluted nature of its reveals and also in the sometimes-baffling behavior on display. Read full review
58
The Film StageMatt CipollaJan 28, 2020
Whether it’s because of the script or David Bruckner’s so-so direction, its attempts at eschatological dread don’t quite stick. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedAug 19, 2021
Unfortunately, it’s a fairly unimaginative, largely unconvincing, often dull and always predictable example of the genre with few thrills and no surprises, and the only thing it raises is a surfeit of puzzling questions about why the wonderful actress Rebecca Hall can’t find a script to show off her abundant skills in a vehicle someone might remember. Read full review
50
Film ThreatNorman GidneyJan 26, 2020
Holding the entire movie together, Hall delivers an exceptional performance as a woman grieving, sliding in and out of reality. But her talents are eventually no match for a runtime that stretches things a bit and story beats that we have seen before. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 20, 2021
Hall strives to carry The Night House on her more-than-capable shoulders, but she can’t quite compensate for the moments when the movie is outright silly or, worse, boring. Read full review
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