Review by Emily Craig (@emillycraig)
Directed by: Michael Rasmussen, Shawn Rasmussen
Starring: Elise Couture, Michael Reed, India Pearl
Brothers Michael and Shawn Ramussen (Writers of John Carpenter’s The Ward) direct their second film The Inhabitants, a supernatural horror film about a couple who purchase a bed and breakfast only to discover a dark historical past.
Dan (Michael Reed) and Jessica (Elise Couture) decide to make their dreams come true by buying The March Carriage house – an old bed and breakfast previously owned by an elderly couple that had to be sold because of the husband’s passing. All is sickly sweet to start off with. We see the happy couple ponder around the house unpacking with their cute dog; it’s only when Dan has to go on a business trip and leaves Jessica home by herself that things start to go wrong.
Jessica delves into the history of the house in order to give her guests some knowledge when they come to stay; it’s safe to say she gets more than she bargained for when researching the cursed house. A midwife previously occupied the house and was accused of being a witch – she was consequently sentenced to death by hanging. After the death, numerous children went missing and were never to be seen again.
The Inhabitants is your typical atmospheric gothic horror – it’s accompanied by the sound of children laughing, a rocking chair and a possession (similar in ways to The Woman in Black, only with a more simplistic, toned down story).
The Inhabitants is your typical atmospheric gothic horror – it’s accompanied by the sound of children laughing, a rocking chair and a possession (similar in ways to The Woman in Black, only with a more simplistic, toned down story).
When you realize the history behind the house in which the film was shot, things become a lot scarier. The house is called The Noyes-Parris house and was home to Rev. Samuel Parris – father to Betty Paris and uncle to Abigail Williams, the initial accusers of the Salem witch trials. This adds to the eeriness of the film, knowing it’s not all fiction – very clever.
Although the plot is extremely simple, The Inhabitants does what it’s supposed to; it’s genuinely quite scary and on the whole works as a horror film, giving a lot of high-budget supernatural films a run for their money. It relies heavily on atmospheric tension, which is unnerving; the great camera shots and shadowy lighting help this. The actors, while a little wooden to start with, warm up and overall perform pretty well. As said previously, the plot is simplistic but I think that this is ultimately the film’s downfall – there isn’t enough story to cover 1hr 30m and I find that towards the middle the film becomes a little repetitive. There are also quite a few unanswered questions that could have made the film a little more interesting, like why were there hidden cameras in the house to begin with?
Overall, it’s nice to see a recent supernatural horror film not rely on cheap thrills such as jump scares. Yes it’s predictable and you will probably guess a lot of what happens in the film but it’s decent enough to enjoy without frowning at the TV screen. It’s coming up to Halloween and I think that The Inhabitants is definitely a film worthy of watching on the run up to the spooky night.
