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This Gross Shudder Original Is the Perfect Blend of Cosmic and Body Horror

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This Gross Shudder Original Is the Perfect Blend of Cosmic and Body Horror
The Beach House (2019)
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By
Rachael Blair Severino
Aug 25, 2024
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Liana Liberto as Emily in The Beach HouseImage Via Shudder
THE BIG PICTURE
The Beach House creates a dread-inducing atmosphere with Lovecraftian horror and a terrifying apathetic oceanic microbe.
Body horror in the film is uniquely slimy and gross, contrasting against the beautiful, glowing nature of the infectious microbe.
Despite her impressive survival skills, Emily in The Beach House ultimately falls victim to the hopeless and effective antagonist, the microbe.
Beach vacations sound like nothing but fun in the sun unless one has seen Jeffery A. Brown’s directorial debut, The Beach House. What starts as an uncomfortable, accidental couple’s weekend in a nearly abandoned seaside town ends in a cosmic horror nightmare that would impress H.P. Lovecraft himself. Liana Liberato stars as Emily, a college senior giving her relationship with Randall (Noah Le Gros) one last chance. Their romantic getaway crashes the older couple, Mitch (Jake Weber) and Jane’s (Maryann Nagel), own stay at the same house. As the couples shakily occupy the space, an oceanic microorganism rapidly works through every living organism it comes in contact with.
The film takes the automatically tense tone of Emily and Randall’s rocky reconciliation and the awkward mashing of the two couples to set an ominous atmosphere that preps the viewer for the Lovecraftian horror to come. Liberato’s Emily is a compelling final girl, using her relevant knowledge base to navigate the outbreak best. The microbe itself proves to be terrifying in a unique way. The slimy body horror of the infected is viscerally unnerving, but The Beach House is at its most dread-inducing when reminding the viewer that the microbe is not malicious. The ambivalence of the microbe, combined with its effects, make The Beach House a haunting debut.