Osgood Perkins is clearly more interested in dread as a texture than in horror as a structure and this film is the most committed version of that instinct. every directorial choice here is considered. which means when it doesn't fully work it's not because perkins didn't know what he was doing, it's because the approach itself has limits. ruth wilson is very good, the house is perfectly cast as a location, and there are individual moments of genuine unease. but at a certain point the film's refusal to give you anything to hold onto stops feeling like restraint and starts feeling like withholding. i admire it more than i enjoyed it.
Osgood Perkins is clearly more interested in dread as a texture than in horror as a structure and this film is the most committed version of that instinct. every directorial choice here is considered. which means when it doesn't fully work it's not because perkins didn't know what he was doing, it's because the approach itself has limits. ruth wilson is very good, the house is perfectly cast as a location, and there are individual moments of genuine unease. but at a certain point the film's refusal to give you anything to hold onto stops feeling like restraint and starts feeling like withholding. i admire it more than i enjoyed it.
