The motion picture “The House on the Other Side” or The Night House was released in early 2020. Horror detective tells the story of a lonely widow who is going through a difficult loss.
Plot
The main character is the teacher Beth, she has been happily married for 14 years. But on the 15th year of marriage, husband Owen decides to commit suicide in a strange way – to shoot himself in the middle of the lake, near which he built a mansion not so long ago. A widowed wife is struggling to cope with the loss, but is trying to return to a normal life. However, psychological problems make themselves felt: disturbing dreams, hallucinations, sleepwalking, depression. She finds a strange plan of her own house, with non-existent labyrinths, slopes and passages. In addition, the drawing is also a mirror image of a real building. The widow’s anxiety intensifies, there is a feeling that someone is watching her.
In the company of friends and colleagues, the widow voices her suspicions that her husband wants to somehow contact her from the other world. He reads his suicide note, where the deceased agrees that “there is nothing”, that “there is nothing behind”, but you should not be afraid. Later, she confesses to her friend Claire: she once argued with Owen, proving that after death there is only nothing. That is, there is no Heaven or Hell. The husband did not agree with this.
Strange dreams continue, and in one of them, an invisible entity takes her to the opposite bank of the river. There is a mirrored house from the blueprint. During the day, in search of confirmation of a dream, she only stumbles upon an unfinished house, and in it she sees a terrible occult figurine on the floor.
Later, in the things of the spouse there are books on the occult, and in the phone there are photos of strangers. Owen suspects cheating. To dispel or confirm her guesses, Beth meets with the alleged mistress, but she refutes the love affair, convinces that they were just flirting. The neighbor also talks about seeing her husband with another lady near that same unfinished house. Paranormal activity increases, and Beth finds dead bodies in a dilapidated structure on the other side of the lake. Later, the main character returns home and encounters a paranormal creature, and this turns out to be far from Owen.
The meaning of the film
Director David Bruckner put a very non-trivial message into this movie. This is not just a story about a haunted mansion, or how loved ones may not be who we think they are. The bottom line is responsibility for loved ones. The main character for 14 years did not notice (or simply did not want to do this) that not everything was in order with her husband. She was too fixated on her problems to notice them in others. But it was because of her that Owen passed away.
Characteristics of heroes
- Beth (played by Rebecca Hall). A militant, irreconcilable and independent of the opinions of others lady. He steadfastly endures the death of his partner, hurries to return to work, where he speaks directly about his tragedy. At the same time, she has an emotional personality: when talking with friends about a deceased loved one, she jokes and laughs, but at the same time almost cries. In the past, at the age of 17-18, she experienced a clinical death that lasted 4 minutes. Apparently, since then she began to have psychological problems, but she found the strength in herself to get an education and build a family.
- Owen (played by Evan Yonikit). Very little is known about him, but Beth thinks she constantly feels his presence. It is clear that marriage has changed a man a lot – in the wedding photos he is a sweet, smiling young man, and in the video from the home archive, a silent man with bruises under his eyes. Later it turns out that during clinical death, his wife “picked up” an otherworldly entity – “Nothing”, this was exactly what was written in the suicide note. The creature drove the man crazy and demanded to kill his wife. He found and met women similar to his spouse, and then killed them, hoping to deceive the essence. In fact, neither Owen himself nor his ghost ever appeared in the film, there was always only Nothing.
- Claire (played by Sarah Goldberg). The widow’s colleague also works at the school. Claire has a family, but she is genuinely concerned about her friend’s mental state. It is she who asks not to try to understand the secrets of the deceased, arguing that not everything needs to be known. Claire is also the first to come to the rescue when Beth is in mortal danger.
- Nothing. An invisible creature from the other world, which provoked psychological disorders of a married couple. It knows how to pretend well, skillfully disguised itself as the heroine’s husband in order to get her soul. For some unknown reason, other souls, other dead people Satisfied nothing. It is unknown what happened to the creature at the end of the film.
Conclusion
Most of the problems of the heroine are connected with the unwillingness to let go of her late husband. Even in the face of death, her only question was: “Where is Owen?”. Having received the answer that her husband is dead, that there is no other world and there is no ghost of him, she looks with horror into the face of Nothing. And he understands that he needs to move on.
