Our House Review (Film, 2018)

Ethan believes he’s invented a device that can provide wireless electricity as easily as wifi. After a failed test run at the college campus and a tragic loss in his family, Ethan discovers that his invention has an alternate purpose. This wireless electricity generator actually creates a portal between the world of the living and the dead.

Our House is a remake of an indie sci-fi film from 2010 called Ghost from the Machine. Nathan Parker (Moon) adapts Matt Osterman’s original screenplay for Anthony Scott Burns’ directorial debut. I’ll say right now the film is good. It’s technically well made, the acting is solid, and the story has a nice arc to it.

It’s just an odd situation. It’s not unheard of for indie films to be remade on a grander scale, but Our House doesn’t feel like it has many more resources than Ghost from the Machine had. There’s also an eight year gap between the release of the films. I imagine there’s some kind of option/rights situation at play to have the film be made at all. Prospero Productions does invest in some really cool, strange indie films, like Maps to the Stars, Cosmopolis, and even a first-look contract with the Soska Sisters (American Mary, Rabid). I’m just struggling with the why of the whole thing. I swear a bigger company like Universal optioned the remake rights off of the festival circuit, but I might just be misremembering at this point.

Don’t get me wrong. Our House is a fine sci-fi/horror film. The idea is solid and the execution is good. The new plot elements add some additional stakes to the story. The original Ghost from the Machine had a much smaller cast and a tighter focus on the invention. Our House focuses more on grief by expanding the cast to Ethan’s family. Instead of just being able to dive into further research, Ethan needs to take a step back as the new guardian of his siblings after their parents die in a tragic accident.

The paranormal elements of Our House overshadow the sci-fi elements. There is less of a focus on making the invention work than the strange things happening when it reveals its true abilities. I’m almost more inclined to call it science fantasy rather than science fiction. It’s a less common distinction, but a fair one. Science fiction focuses on things based on principles of science; science fantasy imagines things that could happen without a real basis in facts. Our House vaguely references Tesla’s wireless electricity experiments, but only for the purpose of saying “it never really worked.”

Obviously, a horror film centered on a piece of technology is going to hit some of those sci-fi notes. I just wish Our House went further with it. There’s a long history of horror/sci-fi stories that don’t sacrifice the exploration of science for the scares: The Fly, Frankenstein, Demon Seed, Alien, Tetsuo, and most of David Cronenberg’s filmography (among others). It’s fair to say that Our House focuses on the more popular haunted house/haunted child tropes in contemporary horror than the (let’s call it) mad science themes that have fallen out of favor since the late 80s.

I keep bringing up the oddness of the concept for a simple reason. Our House feels like a missed opportunity at the foundation level. The screenplay is solid for a horror film. The whole film is well made and well acted. There’s just so much hesitation to actually dig into the how and why of the invention in the film. Ethan’s potentially world-changing invention could be replaced with a haunted lamp or cursed locket and the story would work the exact same way.

Our House is currently streaming on Netflix.

***

Sketching Details is now on Patreon. Subscribe for as little as $1/month for access to exclusive articles, videos, and content.