My Review of The Last House (2026)

 

Written by Matthew Robinson

Directed by Louis Leterrier

Jason: "What if something out there is keeping us trapped?"

Last night, I caught up with something a bit more on the sci-fi side of things. I also chose one of Netflix's most recent of releases, focusing on a family that would be trapped in their home for most of the film.

The family in question were Jason (Wagner Moura) and Anne (Greta Lee) Delgado and their kids, Graham (Noah Alexander Sosnowski) and Ruth (Riley Chung). It was an ordinary day when the rain came down and no one could leave their homes.

I mean no one could get out of and back into their homes and even trying to break out was impossible. This meant that Jason, Ann, Graham and Ruth had to try and adjust to being trapped indoors with the only essentials they had to hand. Let's just say having two DVDs presented some limitations for entertainment.

As the movie would go on, Ruth was seeing patterns and mysterious creatures that no one in her family would listen to. There's also a sad subplot involving the death of the family dog (i really didn't like that scene) and the family having to eat Graham's fish, find ways to attract other animals through a convoluted trap and using the soil under the floorboards to grow vegetables.

These were innovative ways to survive under the strangest of circumstances and enough time passed for older versions of Graham (Gabriel Chung) and Ruth (Emma Ho) to be present. It was during this part where the monsters were becoming much harder to ignore and the chance to finally get out posed it's own challenges.

For the most part I liked the use of the creatures. Their origins were vague enough, they were used sparingly onscreen and managed to be menacing enough. While the Delgados did manage to get out of their house, I don't think the ending signified a win for them as such.

- Jason was an unemployed engineer who also loved fishing. Ann was the one who grew the vegetables in the house. Arden Cho narrated as an older Ruth.

- The original title for this film was 11817.

- Standout music: The Cure's Close To Me.

- Chronology: Set in a Seattle suburb. The Delgados were trapped in their house for five years.

The Last House (2026) did go on a little bit longer than needed but I thought it was a pretty solid film nonetheless. Nice performances from the leads, some solid tension and convincing looking creatures dod help with this one.

Rating: 6 out of 10