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Day or Dusk, Dawn or Dead of Eve: The Night House Sticks With You All Day

26 Feb

The Night House scared me in my bones and through my veins.

Film poster showing a woman standing alone at the end of a wooden dock at a lake in the dead of night. There is a shoreline in the background with a distant house beneath a red moon through heavy clouds. The text reads “The Night House.”

The director plays with angles and shapes to distort your vision while the writers weave the slightest and most intriguing details into the character’s background and behavior to keep you guessing. The scares are well-timed and effective. Each serve a purpose. Every twinge of dread or outright jump in your seat is vindicated. From the bumps to the spooks to the visual distortion and to the realism of the suspension of belief, the fear and unease of this movie lives in human flaws, moral debate, and in the spinning wheel of grief.

The Night House (2020; R) blends psychological horror, suspense, and mystery. You can reserve the DVD here in the BCCLS system or find a copy at the Hoboken Public Library.

Beth is reeling from the death of her husband and, in that grief, has decided to stay in the lakehouse they built together. She puts up a strong front and continues with her day-to-day life, but she can’t hide from the night and the tricks on her mind in her dreams. Soon, she cannot tell what a dream is and what is real. Or are they the same? Either way, a ghostly presence is luring her in. So, she begins digging for answers and going into her husband’s affairs. There lies a trail of dark and disturbing urges. ​

The film is about the seductive battle between not wanting to let go without all the answers, vs. the monsters in our mind that feed on us as we walk through that rotted, dark tunnel. On its simplest level, too, it’s the classic sparring between what lies in this world and what exists beyond it, and at what stages in our lives is it possible for them to blend. ​

Watch under the caution of your lamps and with blankets by your side. Don’t think about the souls that once walked through your room now, perhaps hiding under the couch as you reach for your drink. You might find yourself noticing, too, how angles in your home, at just the right tilt, silhouette the human form. Ghosts and spirits prey on our lazy, presumptuous vision and blind expectation that everything will be as it is when we turn around.

My heart is still pumping tight to the chest, and my throat clenches when I consider the story’s morality. It could happen to any of us, and I, for one, will take extra notice the next time I’m at a secluded cabin of every boat rock, every vacant house, every angle shift, every depth beyond dark windows, and every light across the lake.

Reserve your copy in the BCCLS system here to pick up at the Hoboken Public Library.

Comment below your thoughts once you’ve had a watch.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Celebrate Disability Pride Month: The Space You Left Behind and Stronger

16 Jul

The Space You Left Behind
by Ona Gritz
Some of our Hoboken residents may remember Ona Gritz, who, back in the early 2000’s, was the YA Librarian here at the Hoboken Public Library and helped me run the library’s first Writers Group. Now Gritz is writing full time; The Space You Left Behind was one of two Young Adult novels she had published in 2024 along with Take a Sad Song. In The Space You Left Behind, Cara a sixteen year old who has cerebral palsy works to overcome her self-consciousness about her disability. She and her crush bond over a mystery podcast and then decide to to look into Cara’s own mystery about who her biological father is. Though the novel is fiction, Gritz is able to use her own experience with having cerebral palsy to give authenticity to Cara’s depiction and her outlook of the world. You can also checkout Gritz’s short autobiographical work, On the Whole which details her experience as a new mother with a physical disability, which I had previously blogged about.

Stronger
We screened Stronger as our Monthly Library Movie for Adults back in April , which is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jeff Bauman who lost both his legs during the Boston Marathon bombing and was instrumental in helping get a description of the bomber so he could be found. At first Bauman struggles to adjust to his loss of limbs but with the support of his girlfriend, family, and friends, he learns to use prosthetics and works through his PTSD. The movie came out in 2017 and despite not having huge success on the big screen, I think it is one that should not be overlooked if you enjoy biographical films about real life perseverance. The film was directed by David Gordon Green and written by John Pollono, based on the memoir by Jeff Bauman and Bret Witter. Gyllenhaal, gives a stunning performance as the lead and Tatiana Maslany, Miranda Richardson, Carlos Sanz, and Clancy Brown also are excellent in the supporting cast. Having lived in Boston for two years, I felt they gave an authentic look at the resilient blue collar community that resides there.

For our July Movie Screening we will be showing Les Miserables in honor of Bastille Day (French Independence Day) at 10:30am on July 11.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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