A House on the Bayou - Movie Review

A House on the Bayou – Movie Review

What do you get when you make a gumbo containing a cast of great actors, a fantastic Southern Gothic Vibe, and one of the worst scripts ever put to film?

Spoiler Alert: A House on the Bayou.

Let’s Discuss.

A House on the Bayou is a Southern Gothic Thriller brought to us by writer / director Alex McAulay. McAulay is known mostly for writing straight to streaming garbage films like 2020’s Don’t Tell a Soul and 2017’s Flower. Didn’t see either of those did ya? That’s okay, no one did. Somehow this guy keeps getting to make movies with solid casts, but unfortunately, they all have McAulay subpar writing hanging around their necks like an anchor.

The film centers on  Jessica Chambers, played by the stunning and extremely talented Angela Sarafyan of Westworld fame, as she faces a crossroads in her life. Finding that her husband has been carrying out a rather open affair with one of his students, she tries to reunite the family with a vacation to a gorgeous mansion on the bayou. The sprawling estate is equipped with all the modern-day luxuries the 1% desire, but the owner allows Jessica to stay for free. The owner who she’s never met and doesn’t even know his name. The owner who didn’t tell her about the locked door. As Jessica and her husband John, played by Paul Schneider, attempt to mend their broken relationship, their daughter makes a friend in Isaac. Though Isaac has intentions beyond anyone’s understanding. As Southern Hospitality turns to malice and bloodshed, will the family unite to push back the darkness or will they forever be lost in A House on the Bayou?

Sounds intriguing right?

Yeah, until you realize my synopsis is written with a much defter hand than any part of this movie.

This movie had a lot of promise, but it refused to commit in the first two acts. This leads to a steaming, exposition-filled dump of third act.  The last thirty minutes of the film has not one but three characters go on oddly worded monologues that try to salvage the mess of a narrative by adding magic, Judeo-Christian mythology, and Bayou mysticism, but none of this was set-up in the scenes prior. We don’t get to see any magic. We don’t get to see any ghosts in the night nor lights in the swamp. In fact, for a movie shot in New Orleans, they do as much as possible to not show the scenery.  I honestly thought they shot the film in Vancouver between the use of filters and the turbo landscaping down to remove any semblance of the real swamps.

The actors due a lot with the little they were given. Angela Sarafyan and Paul Schneider give tour-de-force performances. Which is to be expected with two actors of their caliber. Schneider hasn’t turned in a bad performance with his starring role in Channel Zero: Candle Cove being my personal favorite. He always seems to exude this uncomfortable calm with his manner and tone, but underneath you can see a simmering rage. It’s a great juxtaposition with Sarafyan’s hostility built on a deep emotional wound. It’s amazing they could pull out emotions like that with the hamfisted, clunky dialogue they were provided.

Other than the two lead’s amazing performances, I’ve got to shout of the incredible synthwave score by Joseph Stephens. Which isn’t a shock coming from the guy who scored Cobra Kai, 2018’s Halloween, and The Righteous Gemstones. The music is its own character in this film. It provides so much tension that unfortunately the poor writing wastes. This is a score in the same vein as Disasterpiece’s masterwork on It Follows.

I’m not doing a spoiler portion for this film. It’s so bad and messy that there’s no point. The movie as a whole Is a waste or such good pieces.

I guess it should have been telling that this film was slated to be a Paramount+ / Epix exclusive, but instead was dumped onto Amazon Prime instead.

Add this to the list of Blumhouse’s utter failures.  

Don’t watch this movie.