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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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In Search of Edgar Allan Poe (PBS on Kanopy)

19 Feb

Edgar Allan Poe is much more than the gloomy poet of The Raven or the macabre short story teller of The Tell-Tale Heart. The PBS documentary on Kanopy, In Search of Edgar Allan Poe, stylizes and weaves a much more eye-opening (and I’d say heartbreaking) ode to one of American Literature’s greatest.

Image featuring a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe against a dark background with a full moon and a silhouetted raven perched on a branch. The text reads “In Search of Edgar Allan Poe.”

It’s two 90-minute parts, exploring Poe’s imaginative brilliance, his inspiring resilience, and his undying ambition through life-long hardship.

More Than the Macabre

Poe, of course, is rightfully celebrated as the inaugural king of haunting tales. This special taught me that he was also one of the most innovative writers in our country’s history – before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Poe trailblazed the detective story with The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Before Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, he experimented with science fiction through stories like The Balloon Hoax. And his fascination with cryptology in The Gold-Bug helped inspire Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle acknowledged Poe’s influence in his first Sherlock Holmes story – Watson compares Holmes to Poe’s detective Dupin.

The closing credits roll like a who’s who of authors influenced by Poe. 

Poe’s Unity of Effect is also explored, the theory that every word, every line, every image in a short story keeps the reader grounded in one emotion – fear, grief, dread, isolation, etc. And that stories at their full potential should be enjoyed in one sitting. 

The documentary also confronts many misconceptions, particularly about Poe’s personal life and alcoholism. He had demons and addictions. There’s no denying that. It’s tragic and heartbreaking, yet the series unmasks a man marked by early loss, financial struggle, and deep devotion to his ailing wife – massive anxieties and demonic possessions all intermingling with his fascination for the writing craft.

And while Baltimore may claim him as one of their own, the series reminds us that Poe also belongs to more than just Baltimore. In Philadelphia, where he wrote The Tell-Tale Heart and grew his dream of starting a literary journal, and in New York City, where he penned The Raven, he lived out his last days in a cottage with his ailing wife in the Bronx. Here, he wrote his romantic ode to her, Annabel Lee (You can visit the cottage for tours.)  

I came away both haunted and in awe of this literary genius and how much modern storytelling has this man’s dark yet imaginative mind to thank. 

Watch now on Kanopy: In Search of Edgar Allan Poe (PBS)  (Free with your library card)

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

Hit subscribe to get Hoboken Public Library Staff Picks to your email!

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Tags: , ,

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