There’s Someone Inside Your House (2021) premiered on Netflix this past week by director Patrick Brice and produced by horror mastermind James Wan. Based on the novel of the same name by Stephanie Perkins, this modern-day slasher follows a teenager in a small Nebraska town as a killer stalks her classmates. The elusive assailant haunts those who have something to hide, revealing their most terrible secrets to the city before slaying them. Everyone has their secrets, and no one is safe, not even Makani, who moved to the town from her native Hawaii to evade something so terrible, she will never be entirely out of its reach.

This film doesn’t worry about taking itself too seriously. It’s a good blending of horror and comedy. A combination that isn’t always done well, but the two stay out of each other’s way to not bring one another down. When it’s time to be funny, we can laugh with the rest of the cast in their moments of levity, and when it’s time to be afraid, we are. This new slasher feels fresh for the Halloween season, but you are advised not to think too hard or take it too seriously like many others in its genre. It sets itself up well but stumbles on two left feet as it progresses and bogs down its potential. This work from Atomic Monster studios is devoid of being practical and is riddled with plot holes that keep it from being a solid story. Any hopes of redemption vanish entirely by the movie’s climax as it falls into complete predictability and nonsensical story resolution that feels too much like the director was trying to wrap up the project hastily. To reiterate, this film is enjoyable, but one should enter expecting as much story depth as your basic Friday the 13th sequel.

One of the facets that make this movie enjoyable is the characters. In most slashers, the main group of friends serves as numbers in the body count that follows. There’s Someone Inside Your House breaks this routine by killing these characters off as minimally as possible and keeps them from being predictable tropes (except for one guy). Before any of them fall, you are granted two evenly spaced victims and time to get to know each group member. The defining trait of these teenagers is something that many horror films neglect. They are likable and believable. When one of them dies, the remaining friends mourn their loss, and so do you. If Netflix had decided to make this story into a 10-part series, not only could they have done away with the plot holes and bad ending, but they could have made you come to love these characters more and fear for their survival properly. They could have also given the killer a more reasonable backstory for their actions. By the end, you could have been made to understand why they chose their victims and how they discovered their secrets. As this film stands, you do not get that.