A House On The Bayou Worth Watching?

It’s about a family who go on holiday to reconnect after the husband’s infidelity is revealed, but a visit from a pair of strangers takes them down a dark path.

A House On The Bayou was written and directed by Alex McAulay and stars Angela Sarafyan (from Caged and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile), Paul Schneider and Lia McHugh (from The Lodge  and Totem) amongst others.

If you’re righteous, you’ll survive.

A House On The Bayou is part Deliverance, part Funny Games, part Marriage Story.

When Jessica discovers her husband John has been having an affair with one of his students, the pair take their daughter away to an old plantation style house to try and salvage what remains of their marriage. While there they are paid a visit by the local store owner and his grandson, whose intentions, it soon become clear, are darker than the family could ever have expected.

I don’t get some movie husbands. They have a beautiful wife who loves them but they cheat with an equally beautiful woman for apparently no reason! Yes, this is a common set up for a plot, but the difference here is the couple actually seem to be trying to save what remains of their marriage while keeping it quiet from their daughter. This makes for a nicely uncomfortable dynamic before the film really gets going.

Escalation is the main thrust of this film, each scene building upon the last to create more tension, increase mistrust and keep the viewer questioning the motivations of certain characters. The small, intimate, almost single setting certainly helps develop this, particularly the inclusion of a mysterious locked room.

The cast are really what makes this film, Sarafyan proves that there’s more to her than Westworld’s Clementine, her performance here goes through a tumult of emotions without it ever coming across as forced or overblown; Schneider occasionally goes a bit too far but is on the whole plays the weasel husband very well; but it’s Lofland’s Isaac and Grandpappy (Doug Van Liew) who get to have the lions share of the fun. Going from mildly annoying guests who don’t seem to want to leave to something much more sinister, their character arcs, while not Machiavellian per se, follow a course of manipulation and pulls the film into morality play territory as well as horror.

Restrained direction of a clever script means that the twists and turns of the story work within its confines.

There are issues, one of the twists is slightly nonsensical, the daughter is far more concerned about her father than you would honestly expect her to be, and there are times it feels rather padded to get to an already scant runtime of 88 minutes.

Even with those flaws, it comes with a nicely put together and biting ending that fits well with the rest of the film.

Worth Watching?

It actually is. I went in with no expectations and had a fun time. It’s a nice twisted slice of Southern Gothic horror that does exactly what it sets out to do.

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