Review: "There's Someone Inside Your House"

Trying too hard to capture what it means to be a teen today, this film is neither insightful nor genuine, but it's sufficiently scary.

The Midwestern small town of There's Someone Inside Your House, dotted with decrepit farmhouses, secret Nazis, and creepy corn mazes, is the perfect setting for scares.

The film spares no effort in staging viciously cruel, exceptionally bloody murders. The fact that each victim is killed in a way individual to their own deepest-held secrets, which are then revealed by text message to the entire high school body, could be a teen's worst nightmare.

But that's about all the film gets right about teenagers. Its reliance on unsubtle stereotypes and cliquish animosities underestimates young people today. Only one or two characters have backstories that warrant minimal exploration; everyone else is drafted in surprisingly broad strokes.

A late-script monologue tries to infuse the murderer's donning of masks with deeper significance, but it's too little too late, and the comparisons to Michael Myers won't be flattering.

The bright spot in the whole affair is the cast, particularly lead Sydney Park. Give these young actors a better showcase.

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Read the full review at Common Sense Media.