"There's Someone Inside Your House" REVIEW

There's Someone Inside Your House begins with a familiar sequence of events: Jackson Pace is home alone. A few household objects are out of place, but he only considers them briefly before moving on. By the time he realizes he is in danger, it's too late. There's a killer inside his house, and the killer will not stop before stabbing him to death. To add insult to injury, Jackson's death is synchronized with a mass text that reveals Jackson's most vile secret to the whole world.

And the audience is left with one question: wait, how old is this guy supposed to be?

Markian Tarasiuk, the actor who plays Jackson in this one, violent scene, is 28 according to Google. The character of Jackson Pace is supposed to be a high school student. Tarasiuk is not a young-looking 28 year old. So it's not immediately clear if Jackson is supposed to be a 20-something loser who still wears his letterman jacket, because he really does not look like a high school student.

Or take Caleb. He's the high school football star, played by Burkely Duffield, a 30 year old man.

It's positively shocking that the film shows such restraint with the lead. Yes, she's also a high school student, but the actress playing her (Sydney Park) was only 23 at the time of filming. Compared to the 30 year old man, she positively sings with youth.

Obviously, there are reasons why movies choose to cast older actors to play teenage roles. There are fewer labor laws concerning adults than children, for instance. As well, if you cast actors who already have a decade-long resume, you can expect a certain degree of professionalism.

However, when half your cast is pretending to be teeangers with a five-o-clock shadow, there are consequences. Primarily, don't count on any feeling of authenticity. At no point will you believe that any of these characters are actually high schoolers, and at no point will you believe that any of what you're watching could be real. For a movie about authenticity and masks, everything about There's Someone Inside Your House feels fake.

This is made all the more unfortunate by the elements of the film that actually work. There are glimpses of the movie that this could have been, which makes the ultimate disappointment all the worse.

Based on the YA novel of the same name, There's Someone Inside Your House features a serial killer targeting the graduating class of Osborne High. Every time the killer strikes they also release secrets about the victim. One victim brutally beat another student, and the video is released as he is stabbed to death. Another victim produced a white-supremacist podcast, and it is connected to her while she bleeds out. The serial killer wants to expose all of Osborne High's secrets.

The scenes where the serial killer is hunting their targets are tense and well-shot. The movie grants its antagonist a nearly-supernatural control of the scenario, ratcheting up the tension as the film goes on. And when the movie hints at other secrets being kept by the protagonists, we wonder how long they will last until the villain shows up at their door.

The movie plays with humor, with tension, with surprise. The first half hour of the movie is particularly interested in comedy, and a lot of it actually works. All of the actors are clearly trying to elevate the script, even though they often feel like they've been set up to fail. In early scenes where we are introduced to the main characters, they interact with a degree of chemistry that's charming enough to make it less awkward that they're all obviously in their 20s. Other scenes will make you cringe as these characters fumble their way through the plot with moments that are vaguely reminiscent of a John Hughes movie. The movie is not without a certain kind of charm.

But this is all undercut by the movie's consistent problem with authenticity, and because of the concept itself you simply can't ignore it. The actors look like adults pretending to be teenagers. The characters behave in ways that are convenient for the plot but make no sense outside of it. And the whole small-town setting feels less like an genuine look at middle-America and more like an episode of Riverdale or some other CW show.

Ostensibly, the movie is supposed to have a mystery element. Who is the mysterious masked serial killer? Only none of the characters bother to do any sleuthing, because if they did the plot would fall apart. It's like watching a play where you're award that half of the performers are just cardboard standees, and should they get bumped in the wrong way, the whole artifice will come tumbling down.

The only times the movie will introduce plausible suspects as the killer are transparent red-herrings. Whenever someone seems suspicious, you can immediately clear them of suspicion, because this isn't exactly a well-developed crime saga.

These aren't teenagers. They're hot, fashionable, hard-partying made-for-TV teenagers. Even the social outcast who supposedly cut his own hair with a pair of scissors is well-dressed and well-groomed. As the various mysteries unfold, there is no sense of looking into a reflection of the real world. And this wouldn't be a fatal flaw except that the movie is, at least ostensibly, supposed to be about authenticity.

"There's Someone Inside Your House" is available via Netflix.