I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House (2016) / I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

While travelling, I caught up with two films, both featuring favourite actresses, both Netflix Originals. Both titles read like the opening lines of novels... or suicide notes. 

I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE (2017) is an indie curio written and directed by actor, Macon Blair. It stars Melanie Lynskey as Ruth and Elijah Wood as Tony, and tells the story of two misfits solving the crime of a careless burglary at Ruth's home. Ruth's laptop and her grandmother's jewellery were stolen, and she suspects the police are not going to help find the culprit. Even when she hands them a plaster-of-paris model of the burglar's shoeprint, taken from her garden. Ruth teams up with martial-arts nutjob neighbour Tony and together they set off to retrieve Ruth's property. She grows and finds confidence through their efforts and the couple make an intriguing pair. They bond. It's not love, but it is something and it counts. The film is wilfully indie, and can't help but lead itself into a gunfight cul-de-sac of a climax when it needn't have (that's not where its energy was), but it is very likeable, and fun, and Lynskey shines bright. I have loved her from her breakout role in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures through to her portrayal of obsessive Charlie Sheen stalker, Rose, in Two And A Half Men.

I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE (2016) is a haunted house movie, starring Ruth Wilson as Lily, written and directed by Oz Perkins, the son of Anthony Perkins. The film tells of a carer, Lily, who moves into a modern, sterile house to look after the old lady (played with considerable power by Paula Prentiss), who was once a writer of horror novels. Spirits from the distant past - where a young wife was murdered by her husband - and from the novelist's books drift through the place, coming down to bear on Lily. The film starts by Lily telling us in voiceover - as Ruth looks to camera - she will not to make it through to the end. It's a fascinating and sometimes frustrating experience. Perkins' directing and story-telling style does not deliver easy shocks and scares, but instead fills the screen and the room in which we watch his film with an ambient sense of slow, slow dread, punctuated by flashes of spook. The ghosts of Psycho, Mrs Bates and Norman permeate the film, though not in an obvious way. Oz Perkins is too interesting for that. Be assured, though, they are there. The film is dedicated to his father, "For AP, who gave me an old house."

Both films are still available on Netflix.