I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House
The dark corners of the imagination give rise to all manner of phantoms and haunts if left unchecked. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is an atmospheric ghost story about a mousy, live-in nurse named Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson), caring for an acclaimed horror novelist from yesteryear named Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), who constantly refers to Lily as "Polly". Lily learns from the manager of the estate, Mr. Waxcap (Bob Balaban), that Polly was the name of the protagonist from her most enigmatic novel, "The Lady in the Walls". Lily begins reading the book for herself, despite her aversion to scary stories, and begins to feel the presence of a spectral Polly (Lucy Boynton) within the dark recesses of Iris's isolated home.
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I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House creeps along with patience and confidence, as if the camera were the eyes of a ghost haunting the house. The film begins with Lily's narration, in which she establishes dramatic irony by declaring that although she just turned twenty-eight, she will never be twenty-nine. This adds to a lingering sense of dread and foreboding throughout the rest of her anxiety-tinged stay at Iris's home. Very little is known about Lily outside of her commission as a hospice nurse, save for a conversation she has with a friend over the phone during her first night in the shadowy century home. Lily doesn't neglect her duties to Iris, but she has a couple of questionable neurotic idiosyncrasies herself. She shares that although her job doesn't require her to wear white, she does so because it sends the message to others that she "cannot be touched". Lily scares easily--haunted house not withstanding--and becomes agitated by her repeated attempts to start "The Lady in the Walls". Mr. Waxcap mentions the book in passing, planting the desire to read the novel in Lily's mind. Virtually alone in the house for so long, Lily begins to literally jump at shadows, as her imagination becomes increasingly fecund, subconsciously looking to fuel her dark fantasies. This key conversation with Mr. Waxcap comes after Lily points out a growing patch of rot and mold on one particular spot on the wall near the kitchen--a detail that becomes more deeply enmeshed in her presumption as to what terrible fate befell Polly. It's unclear whether Lily finished the book or not, but Iris never gave a conclusive answer as to what happened to Polly in the end of her story, claiming that it would be an injustice to her. Lily is aware of this, making it more likely that the scene where Polly is blindfolded as a part of a strange honeymoon game--and subsequently meets her cruel end--is all in her head. Rot is an abundant motif in I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House; it is superficially used to depict the presence of Polly's ghost, but also as an intimation of Lily's unreliable perspective. Lily conveniently discovers a box hidden away in a closet, marked with Polly's name on it. Within the box is a mildew-ridden manuscript, implied to be the source material for what became Iris's book, further implying that the story's "ending" was concealed within it all along. Like an obsessed fan, Lily's thoughts are overtaken by Polly's fate; she is drawn in by the clever conceit of Iris's novel, in which she claims that Polly "told" her the story--a device used to entice readers with the lure of the supernatural.
Lily becomes incapable of managing the psychological weight of being essentially alone for almost a year in a strange, dark house. Her "cabin fever" is reminiscent of other psychological horror films where isolation triggers a nervous breakdown, like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Roman Polanski's Repulsion. The "rot" overtaking Lily's mind is manifested in her environment--a metaphor also found in Repulsion; that the camera watches Lily like the eyes of a ghost is also a nod to The Shining. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House has drawn comparisons to the films of David Lynch; both this film and Lost Highway feature lingering shots of black corridors that represent the shadowy and perilous passages of the human mind--where our darkest urges are repressed and become the source of our psychological crises. The shocking climax of I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House parallels Diabolique by Henri-Georges Clouzot, another psychological horror film that deals with the physiological effect of a haunting. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House lets the viewer's dread marinate with its tone and pacing. The use of sound is crucial in ratcheting up the terror, emerging in everything from a low and persistent hum to indiscernible whispers--secret messages to Lily from her spectral housemate. Lily's narration has a metallic undertone to it, similar to the static-heavy signal from the house's old-fashioned television, as if it were being transmitted from beyond the grave. When Lily drops a sieve full of blackberries, the sound of a quickening heartbeat is followed with a hallucination that her arms have become bloated and gray like a corpse. There is almost always the sound of rain falling--which supports the motif of rot--drenching everything around the house with mold and inviting decay and corruption. Reflections as a gateway to the realm of the dead are another motif in I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. Lily believes she sees Polly in the reflection of the TV, or reflected on the surface of an eyeball. Other "reflections" are more abstract; Lily narrates that she is the "pretty thing you are looking at", mirroring the lines from Iris's book, narrated by Polly. There is something fundamentally vacant about Lily; in Polly, she finds that missing piece that makes her feel like she is a part of a legacy, becoming more like Polly by degrees.
Recommended for: Fans of a tense psychological horror movie and ghost story that insinuates itself into your imagination--as the story of Polly does with Lily. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House flourishes when watched late at night with the lights off and minimal distractions; it rarely tips its hand about when it is going to startle you, making the scares more effective.
Lily becomes incapable of managing the psychological weight of being essentially alone for almost a year in a strange, dark house. Her "cabin fever" is reminiscent of other psychological horror films where isolation triggers a nervous breakdown, like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Roman Polanski's Repulsion. The "rot" overtaking Lily's mind is manifested in her environment--a metaphor also found in Repulsion; that the camera watches Lily like the eyes of a ghost is also a nod to The Shining. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House has drawn comparisons to the films of David Lynch; both this film and Lost Highway feature lingering shots of black corridors that represent the shadowy and perilous passages of the human mind--where our darkest urges are repressed and become the source of our psychological crises. The shocking climax of I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House parallels Diabolique by Henri-Georges Clouzot, another psychological horror film that deals with the physiological effect of a haunting. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House lets the viewer's dread marinate with its tone and pacing. The use of sound is crucial in ratcheting up the terror, emerging in everything from a low and persistent hum to indiscernible whispers--secret messages to Lily from her spectral housemate. Lily's narration has a metallic undertone to it, similar to the static-heavy signal from the house's old-fashioned television, as if it were being transmitted from beyond the grave. When Lily drops a sieve full of blackberries, the sound of a quickening heartbeat is followed with a hallucination that her arms have become bloated and gray like a corpse. There is almost always the sound of rain falling--which supports the motif of rot--drenching everything around the house with mold and inviting decay and corruption. Reflections as a gateway to the realm of the dead are another motif in I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. Lily believes she sees Polly in the reflection of the TV, or reflected on the surface of an eyeball. Other "reflections" are more abstract; Lily narrates that she is the "pretty thing you are looking at", mirroring the lines from Iris's book, narrated by Polly. There is something fundamentally vacant about Lily; in Polly, she finds that missing piece that makes her feel like she is a part of a legacy, becoming more like Polly by degrees.
Recommended for: Fans of a tense psychological horror movie and ghost story that insinuates itself into your imagination--as the story of Polly does with Lily. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House flourishes when watched late at night with the lights off and minimal distractions; it rarely tips its hand about when it is going to startle you, making the scares more effective.