31 Days of Halloween 2018: The Lodgers

2017, Brian O'Malley (Let Us Prey) -- Netflix

At what point in recent pop culture did we decide that decrepit, old but still lived in manor houses of the UK were ripe to be haunted? I am assuming, that as the regency era came to a close and fewer of those old moneyed families had the coin to keep the estates in a state of full repair, they became more attuned to the "haunted house" vibe of America's Victorian mansions? Creaking, cracked, moldering and falling down. But something in only more recent memory has had more of them attract spirits and other creatures of the night.

The Lodgers takes us to early 20th century Ireland and the house of the twins Rachel and Edward. Their house shares a state akin to Crimson Peak, with no servants and no funds to keep it repaired. Barely enough to feed the young adults.

Unlike most of these movies, we wade into the sinister quite immediately as Rachel, who has fallen asleep while reading, has to rush home before the last bell of midnight. As she reaches her bedroom door, we see the trapdoor at the base of the staircase bubble up with fetid water. Something wants out of ... the basement ? The next morning the twins sing the nursery rhyme that defines their lives:

"Girl child, boy child, listen well. Be in bed by midnight's bell. Never let a stranger through your door. Never leave each other all alone. Good sister, good brother be, follow well these cautions three. Long as your blood be ours alone, we'll see you ever from below."

Rachel is of an age, past puberty but isolated by her obsessive brother and the supernatural circumstances. The funds are finally running far too low for them to ignore, and Rachel tries to scheme her escape. Her brother won't have any of it, as he knows the true danger. He saw what 'the lodgers' in the water did to their parents. He is afraid of what will happen should they break the pact.

This is a lovely looking, artful movie. Rachel is fey and sultry and her brother is just... pale & creepy. There is an unsettling connection between the two the belies the tie to the watery creatures beneath the house. Rachel wants to run away from it and is helped by a local boy, recently returned from war with his own bonds. But can she escape with no cost? No, no she cannot.

I just wish the sodden weight of the end of the movie had felt heavier. There is no great reveal, not that there needs to be, but we never really felt the menace of these other worldly creatures. What was the pact? What would happen if they just left? There had to be more danger than just death? Alas, we get nothing.