There’s Someone Inside Your House

Directed by Patrick Brice, There’s Someone Inside Your House follows a group of formulaic teenagers, including Sydney Park’s Makani and Théodore Pellerin’s Ollie, as they’re stalked and killed by a mask-wearing psycho. Filmmaker Brice, working from Henry Gayden’s script, kicks There’s Someone Inside Your House off with an entertaining, Scream-like opening involving the murder of a popular jock, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that the admittedly novel nature of the killer’s modus operandi (ie he/she wears a 3D-printed image of their victim’s face) perpetuates the intriguing, promising atmosphere. It’s disappointing to note, then, that the picture segues into a progressively tedious midsection riddled with unappealing, underwhelming elements, with the arms-length vibe exacerbated by an almost astonishing roster of flat, one-dimensional protagonists that feel as though they’d be more at home on a bottom-of-the-barrel teen drama (ie they’re all just so bland and generic). And although Brice periodically livens the dull proceedings up with relatively decent kill sequences (despite an overuse of CGI blood), There’s Someone Inside Your House builds towards a hopelessly ineffective finale that ensures it concludes on just about as anticlimactic a note as one could envision – with the end result a complete misfire that squanders a decent-enough setup.

* out of ****