#11 - I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)
(dir. Osgood Perkins)
Lily, a hospice nurse, takes a new job as a live-in caretaker for Iris Blum, an elderly woman who is an author known for her horror novels. Iris, suffering from dementia, always calls Lily "Polly", which Lily dismisses as just a symptom of the disease until she discovers that Polly is a character in Iris's novel "The Lady in the Walls" - a character who was brutally murdered in a house much like the one she is currently living in, and she begins to question whether the book is actually fact or fiction.
This is a pretty decent ghost story, with some excellent cinematography and atmosphere. It is an extremely slow burn, so if you are looking for action or a more standard haunted house movie (like say, The Conjuring) you will be disappointed. There are a couple of scares, but more often the film just builds a sense of dread without trying to make you jump. More than anything, I thought it captured the feeling of reading a scary novel alone in a dark house (even if that isn't strictly the point of the film).
Perkins also directed The Blackcoat's Daughter, one of my favorite horror films of 2015, and stylistically this feels very similar. If you enjoyed that one, or other recent slow burn horror films like The Witch or House of the Devil, you may enjoy this as well. I don't think it is as good as The Blackcoat's Daughter, but it is still worth your time.
Currently available to stream on Netflix.
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