The Beach House (2019)

Written and directed by Jeffrey A. Brown, The Beach House is his debut feature, and folks, this film is an impressive beginning. It looks amazing (WOWEE do I love shots where the horizon slices through the middle!); the action slides along at a steadily increasing pace; it's weird and squishy and ultimately pretty sad... It's all here, and the grains of sand of this story really stick.

As usual, I went in as clueless as possible to watching, and it was particularly enjoyable. It turned out I had assumed completely wrong with regards to the type of film this was going to be, having seen little more than the poster (above) and some positive reactions on Letterboxd. Knowing almost nothing and assuming wrongly made the plot developments even more unsettling.

With that in mind: I'm not going to heavily spoil The Beach House here, but I do urge you to stop reading (and to not read the tags on this post) if you haven't seen this movie and plan to do so soon!

Emily (Liana Liberato) is visiting the family beach house of her boyfriend Randall (Noah Le Gros) for the couple to attempt to reconnect after he dropped out of uni and started behaving strangely.


(...If I had one criticism, it would be that Randall's backstory seems to be developed more than is ultimately necessary. It gives us some meaty insight into him as a person and fleshes him out, but I felt as though what we're told might be more relevant by the end. It isn't. This is barely a complaint, however, and I'll take over-developed characters over under-developed pretty much always).


Emily is portrayed as sensible and smart, with some canny and portentous info dumps about her fascination with organisms and bacteria (she's an organic chemistry student), but she's still shown as young enough and in love enough to be putting up with a bit of a crappy boyfriend. 

Not long after they arrive, Emily realises the house isn't empty of inhabitants, finding medication (a lot of medication), a stocked fridge, and dirty dishes. It appears that Randall - who, now that I think about it, spends most of the first two acts laying down or asleep 😆 - didn't ask his father if they could use the house, he just assumed it'd be free. Unfortunately, it's been promised to some family friends.

Mitch and Jane (Jake Weber, who I recognised from the Dawn of the Dead remake, and Maryann Nagel) are a slightly odd but seemingly harmless older couple who invite Emily and Randall to stay in the house - "there's plenty of room!" - and have dinner with them that night.

Exposition ensues. Randall suggests the group do edibles together. The night starts to get weird.

There's a sense of groggy clamminess that begins around this point, and it sticks until the final shot. Whatever is making these people feel so sluggish, be it drugs/drink/something else (or a combination of all three), the physical and mental effects of it are revealed in such a way that it makes you want to mop your own brow. That sense of being drowsy, muddled and heavy-feeling. Even the clichéd perception-shift shot of the ground coming up to meet Emily when she passes out seems incredibly appropriate and effective here.

The Beach House is full of fog, outside, across the water and land as far as possible, and internally, inside the character's heads as they sweat and crawl and panic.

A slow burn within a tight 88mins. An It Follows bedfellow with icky visuals (I'm looking at you, kitchen scene and basement scene!) and cosmic threat. It's a tale of an intimate undoing within a planetary one.

Cosmic horror is defined as: 

"fear and awe we feel when confronted by phenomena beyond our comprehension, whose scope extends beyond the narrow field of human affairs and boasts of cosmic significance". 

I'd say that The Beach House can definitely be filed under that.

Jeffrey A. Brown proves that with vision and imagination, a limited budget means absolutely nothing. Streaming on Shudder right now!

The Ruins (2008)

For another movie about dumb white tourists misunderstanding and/or disrespecting native culture to their peril, The Ruins ain't so bad!

Two couples are on the last days of a holiday in Mexico when they're invited to trek to Mayan ruins "off the beaten path". As one might expect, terrible things happen until horrifying tragedy wipes out nearly the entire group. This apparently departs from the novel upon which the film was based, that culminated in everybody dying (which honestly, I would have preferred... though I suppose cosmically speaking this one is scarier).

Directed by Carter Smith and written (novel and screenplay) by Scott B. Smith, who also did the same for the story/film of A Simple Plan, this is short, sharp and competent horror. It's not a complicated tale but it keeps you interested and decently unfolds the dread over its 90mins.

I was also pleasantly surprised at an early assumption I'd made plot-wise being proven wrong. Guessing narrative twists and turns is an occupational hazard but it's nice to be fooled where possible!

❝Four Americans on a vacation don't just disappear!❞

− Jeff (Jonathan Tucker)

I suppose if I had one complaint, it was the clumsy handling of the introduction of "mimicking" early on. Would these kids use that phrasing? It seems to be done purely to put that word or action in the minds of the audience for later. But I really don't think it was necessary - in fact, it would have been roughly 5% more shocking coming out of absolutely nowhere.

"But Jo", I hear you ask, "does this film have gore?" And to that, I say yes, yes it certainly does. 

The Ruins gives realistic, skin-crawling moments of body horror. From broken bones, to open wounds and amputations, this one isn't for the squeamish in that respect.

At dead on 1hr30 The Ruins is worth the runtime for some genuinely uneasy and hopeless moments of peril and solid bloodiness. I had always assumed this movie was a sub-standard Turistas-type affair; a great concept but ultimately the makers balls it up in a variety of frustrating ways. This is not the case! I'm pleased I gave this one a chance (better late than never).

I watched on Tubi but I'm sure it's fairly easy to find other places, too.

Frogs (1972).

This is a film for the genre in the loosest sense. But only someone with a heart of stone can resist 1970s eco-horror! Especially when Frogs has a poster like this:

And a trailer like this:(NB: the quicksand death was deemed too silly and changed in the final cut)

Frogs! Killer frogs! Not giant, man-eating ones like that poster suggests, but still.

Actually hang on, they're not even technically killer frogs. We never see them attack anyone... hmm. If anything they seem to be overseeing things; the entire film is interspersed with shots of frogs looking.

"Our plan is coming together nicely sir..."

If there was ever any doubt over the question "Can frogs be scary?" I think we have an answer. Even en masse, they are still just a big pile o'frogs. Not exactly nightmare material. Even when clawing at the window, it's funny more than anything.

Lemme in!

So watch this expecting to be charmed, rather than terrified. Unless you have ranidaphobia, I suppose.

Any horror to be found here is probably in the fashions...

Yeah okay, that was a cheap shot.

Seriously though, the beauty of Frogs lies in the fact the concept is pretty much ridiculous (as a nod to this, the title should have had an exclamation mark: Frogs!) but it's all played entirely, fabulously straight.

An eco-system retaliating against humans who've been trying to kill it off sounds like a right-on idea, with a plausible amount of scares. Yet here, despite most of the critters involved having earned many horror airmiles - snakes, spiders, leeches, alligators - there are only a couple of moments where the viewer isn't giggling.

Leeches to the face, urrgh.

Watching a character limply fending off Spanish moss, though? Pardon me if the goosebumps take a while with that one. No really, don't wait around, I'll call you when it happens.

Lead Sam Elliott, as hunky hero Pickett Smith, strides around the Florida swampland in his denim outfit, frowning at the pollution and discovering bodies. Later, he urges the others to give up the fight and leave the area. Do they listen? Do they 'eck.

Those who aren't murdered, flee. Leaving only crotchety grandpa to stubbornly stay, as the animals take over his estate.

"I will not have my fourth of July schedule disrupted...!" he bellows. You may have to share your cake then, pops.

I think I need more nature-revenge films in my life. I think we all do.