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The Beach House Movie Review

The Beach House is a 2020 horror film directed by Jeffrey A. Brown and starring Liana Liberato. It’s a flawed, but somewhat intriguing flick.

It follows a couple who take a vacation to a beach house, where they meet an older couple and are threatened by a mysterious infection that spreads across the coast. The movie is not really that relevant to the current worldwide pandemic and I disagree about that with the critics, but I do agree that it is strange, otherworldly and effective at its atmosphere and disgusting elements.

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The worm in the foot was the most disgusting sequence for me as I could not look at it for too long as my biggest animal fear is worms. But the scene was very effective in making audiences disturbed for sure. I also loved the film’s emphasis on microbiology and astrobiology as the protagonist studies it and some of her speeches are interesting.

The movie is also visually very strong, especially for such a small budget. I liked the attention to detail with the different water and the glowing trees due to microbes being particularly memorable. The entire third act plays out as a drug-induced, post-apocalyptic story full of despair and chaos. It was good, but the ending itself was arguably quite disappointing.

The biggest problem is the characterization. Again, I really liked Emily. Liana Liberato is quite good in the main role and I found her very competent, smart and cool. My issue is her boyfriend who is such a horrible person, incompetent and just plain annoying that he really got on my nerves. Also, the two older people have nothing of essence to add to the movie, thus their inclusion was truly unnecessary.

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The Beach House also features an overly dull first act with the relationship drama not working particularly well due to me only caring about one of these people. So, the film is good in the SF, horror and disaster elements, but quite mediocre in the drama elements that really hurt the entire feature in my opinion. That is why I prefer ‘Color Out of Space’ personally.

Whereas The Beach House is quite mediocre in its drama elements due to a boring first act and weak characterization (the boyfriend is annoying and the older couple is unnecessary), the protagonist herself is pretty memorable, the movie looks good, the emphasis on science is great and the post-apocalyptic in style second half really worked due to a strong atmosphere of despair and some memorable imagery here and there.

My Rating – 3.5