When I turned on Netflix, There’s Someone Inside Your House was billed as a throwback to old school horror movies. Teenagers, sex. parties, and murder. What else do you need?
Makani (Sydney Park) has moved from Hawaii to Nebraska to live with her grandmother. Starting over with a new last name and new friends, Makani thought she could escape her past. But a serial killer is stalking the students of Osborne High School, exposing their darkest secrets before murdering them. Will Makani’s past be exposed or will she be able to stop the killer in time?
This movie is based on a 2017 book by Stephanie Perkins. I haven’t read the book so I can’t say whether this was a faithful translation. From what I can tell, this is the first horror story from Perkins but it’s also the first horror movie from screenwriter Henry Gayden. Whoever is to blame for this really needs to sit down and watch some better teen horror movies.
My first issue with the movie was how much time lapsed between each kill. The movie is 96 minutes long. In that time, there are four murders. Four. There are a couple of close calls but there aren’t any more kills. For comparison, 1996’s Scream was 111 minutes long and had eight murders. Fifteen minutes longer and twice as many deaths. That is a horror movie.
Next, Makani’s big secret is stupid. Really, all of the secrets are kinda stupid. There’s a couple of seriously violent hazing incidents, a racist, and a drug addict. Now the hazing incidents were already known by other people….they were there. The drug addict didn’t do a very good job of hiding his addiction. And the racist is also no big surprise. All of these things suck but I’m not sure any of them were worthy of murder. Well, maybe the hazing incidents….
Again, There’s Someone Inside Your House is just boring. There isn’t anything worth watching here. Let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist. OK?