House By The Lake (2017)

Recap:

So there is this family that (temporarily) moves into the house by the lake. The parents are in the last phase of their marriage, they don’t even care to stop bitching when the child can hear them. The child, by the way, is somewhere “on the spectrum”. Being “on the spectrum” means not only that you’re an autist, it also means that the people around you believe that “autist” is a bad word. Then there is the nanny, who is a double threat to the mother: she is younger and hotter than her, and she is a trained professional with a natural empathy and establishes contact with the kid in no time. And then there is the old perv who totally ignores the mother and goes for the child immediately. All in all the situation is pretty dreadful, and nobody worries too much when the kid is having a new “imaginary” friend, the Fish Man. Not until the girl is missing, that is.

Well yes, sounds very interesting. Trouble is: it isn’t. Not really. The story unfolds, occasionally I wonder, if the kid is autistic, shouldn’t it have a tantrum in this situation?, but then I’m not an expert, and then the story unfolds some more, and I start to realize that this is not a horror movie, it’s a mystery thriller with more mystery and less thriller, and then there is a final plot twist that is not really surprising, and that’s all folks. Of course they could have added more suspense, a little creepier, maybe cut away a bit of the long winding drama stuff or make the movie longer. But maybe they just hadn’t the skills or the imagination.

Yes, you can watch it. It’s not bad, not at all. I have seen crap that was so much worse. Trouble is: it just isn’t good. Not a bit.

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