(Emmalee Martyak)

The house is always there, what really matters is who happens to find themselves within its walls.

“The House” (2022) is a stop motion horror/comedy film, which utilizes different fabrics and materials in place of regular computer animation. The movie runs for only 97 minutes, and is split into fairly equal thirds, with each giving a new story that takes place in the same house every time.

The first story represents the birth of the house. It follows a poor family who gets what seems to be a stroke of luck: a wealthy architect offers to build them a house (not just any house, of course, the house). The only catch? They have to give up their family homestead so that the architect can have the land that it sits on. This doesn’t seem like a bad deal to the family, who seemingly went from barely getting by to living with the bourgeoisie overnight.

However, the house holds a lot of secrets, and, among other things, the parents’ newfound greed eventually leads to their two small children’s neglect.

The second story appears to be set in more modern times, with a renovator struggling to revive the old house to be sold. Unfortunately, he runs into a problem: pests…of multiple kinds.

The homeowner–a rat–does everything he can, but finds himself unable to get rid of the pests that he initially has to deal with: insects. Eventually, his unsuccessful efforts to rid the house of its infestation of creepy crawlies leads him to making the tough decision to sell the house which, over his years of owning it, became his passion project.

In the process of trying to sell the house, he finds himself dealing with another kind of pest: unwelcome guests–and the guests that they brought with them. With a plethora of problems afflicting him physically, he is also battling with loneliness. His familial relationship is unknown to the viewers, and what we know of his romantic relationships makes the lonesome he faces even more prominent.

The third and final act of the film is the end of the house’s story, and also a signifier of a new beginning for it. A desperate landlady refuses to leave the house until she makes it perfect, much to the chagrin of her tenants, all while the surrounding water rises (literally) around them.

Together, we give “The House” 4.5 out of five stars. The artistry of the film is enough for at least — (four?) of those stars alone, and when combined with the important, introspective themes and events of the movie, is that much more impactful.

While we’re talking about themes, “The House” addresses struggles relating to family dynamics, greed, relationships, mental health, the toll that loneliness can take and, overarchingly, generational trauma.

In Act I, Mabel (voiced by Mia Goth), the eldest daughter of the family, struggles to keep up with her parents’ erratic behavior and to save her baby sister from their warped perspective and their troubling priorities. Act I tackles themes including pretending to be something you’re not, attempting to fabricate your own reality and the influence and control people can have on each other, especially when one has an economical advantage over the other.

On a surface level, in Act II, the renovator deals with bugs in the house, though the deeper the story goes, the more metaphorical “bugs” that seem to surface. The renovator slowly descends into madness as he tries to prepare for an open house, while also straying further and further away from reality. He grapples with his relationships, solitude and his own self control throughout the story, all while making the audience question how many of his problems are really delusions. Afterall, is it really possible to get rid of pests when you’re a rat yourself?

The landlady of Act III can’t seem to catch a break, and it’s this story that really drives home the theme of control. She fights tirelessly to control the state of the house and her tenants, but to no avail. She, like the renovator, also seems to struggle with maintaining relationships in her search for perfection. Also, like the family in Act I, her main goal is to make a better life for herself, one where she is free from judgement and stress.

She thinks that she will get this by exercising control over the house, but that really only makes things worse. It is the same with the family in Act I and the renovator in Act II. In wanting to control their appearance to others, the family loses what little autonomy they have by handing it over to a rich man who promises a luxurious life. Meanwhile, the renovator focuses all of his control on ridding the house of pests, while ignoring the life that is falling apart around him.

In all, “The House” revolves around the dangers of obsession with controlling the uncontrollable. While the house itself may seem to be the source of the characters’ woes at first glance, simply because it is the tie between the three acts, it has very little to do with the characters at all. The house is merely the vessel containing these conflicts; it is those inside of it who make it into something much more horrifying.