The House Is An Unnerving Nightmare Disguised As A Cozy Stop-Motion Film
Home is where the heart is… and in Netflix’s new film The House we go on a journey across three eras all tied to the same mysterious house. The stop-motion dark comedy is an anthology that’s broken up into three 30-minute shorts featuring talking furniture, anthropomorphic cats, and creepy crawly musical numbers.
The first story is the strongest, featuring a felt doll-style family who get a visit from judgmental family members who scoff at their modest lifestyle. When they come across an eccentric architect who offers to create a lavish home for them on the condition that they never leave, they jump on the opportunity. The mansion is huge and the oversized rooms dwarf the characters, looming over them sinisterly. Their situation takes a horrifying turn as the mansion slowly changes the parents and the house is constantly in a state of confusing construction. The story explores what really makes a house a home. We see family and tradition tossed aside for the fleeting joy that comes from pursuing an unattainable desire for status.
The next tale is centered around a rat called the Developer who has gone into financial ruin trying to fix up the house and sell it for a profit. While it takes place in the same house, this time it feels modern instead of ominous, but not all is at is appears. Within the walls of the house is a fur beetle infestation that later translates to a rat infestation when the Developer gets interested buyers who just won’t leave. We also get a trippy song and dance number from the fur beetles. Maybe the message here is that a makeover doesn’t work when the foundation is broken. It just allows more toxic vermin in until its too late.
In the final narrative, we explore the house in a post-apocalyptic setting with anthropomorphic cats. The house owner Rosa has been running a boarding house, but struggling with rent and renovations after terrible floods. When the flooding gets worse, she manages to escape impending doom with the help of her friends, turning the house into a boat to get away. Perhaps the lesson here is it’s better to embrace change rather than be stubborn trying to make something work that will just lead to your own destruction. This story was the weakest, feeling like an outlier from the other two as it doesn’t quite fit in with the creepy vibes.
The House is an unnerving and unconventional nightmare anthology disguised as a cozy stop-motion film. The recurring house promises falsehoods of affluence and a better life, but it is a trap that’s difficult to escape. The details in the stop-motion film are elaborate and deliberate, with great care being put into the creation of the characters and sets. The voice cast includes Matthew Goode, Mia Goth, and Helena Bonham Carter.
Directed by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and Paloma Baeza, The House is a horrible fever dream that will leave you wanting more.
