THE LAST HOUSE (2026)

Studio:   Netflix
Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer:   Matthew Robinson
Producer: Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson, Louis Leterrier, Oly Obst
Stars:    Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Gabriel Barbosa, Emma Ho, Riley Chung, Noah Alexander Sosnowski

Review Score:

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Summary:

A family fights to survive when everyone in the world becomes inexplicably sealed inside their homes by a mysterious threat capable of controlling rain.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

With a rainstorm pouring outside, Jason Delgado, his wife Ann, their eight-year-old daughter Ruth, and their twelve-year-old son Graham discover they have become inexplicably trapped inside their suburban Seattle home. The family is unable to unlock any doors and any holes they break into windows become mysteriously sealed by seemingly sentient rainwater. Water, gas, and power still work, but the internet and phones go down, disabling outside communication.

The Delgados observe that their neighbors, who include elderly couple Max and Marcia Richardson, are similarly unable to leave their houses. Susan, a woman who had been out jogging when the storm hit, runs to seek help for everyone. The neighbors begin communicating to each other via Morse code and wipe boards.

For the first few days of being trapped, the Delgados ration their food supply to prepare for an unknown period of time. They also try making the best of a bad situation by keeping each other entertained, physically active, and optimistic.

After a month inside the house, Ruth points out a mysterious figure whom she often sees lurking outside when it rains. Ruth claims the “rainwalker” is friendly, but her parents dismiss Ruth’s claim of a creature as merely her imagination.

On Christmas, the family witnesses Marcia Richardson tragically collapsing to death across the street. Susan, the jogger who was caught outside on the day the rain came, suddenly bangs on the house, maniacally shouting that everyone is dead and no help is coming before mysterious shapes pull her into the darkness. Everyone later confirms the creatures are real when they are repeatedly seen stalking around the house during rainstorms.

The cap falls off the chimney on the house, whose preexisting state of disrepair continues worsening throughout the ongoing rain. The chimney now allows outside access, although the opening is too small for a person to fit through.

Having depleted their pet’s medicine supply, the family’s old dog Cassidy falls ill. Jason is forced to euthanize the animal with a handgun he previously purchased for protection. Despite his wife’s vehement reservations, Jason uses his fisherman skills to cut up the dogmeat and freeze it for emergency food.

Running perilously low on food after three months, emotional breakdowns increase tensions among the family. Jason promises his despondent wife he will find a way for them to thrive, not just survive. After several failed attempts, Jason creates a trap and pulley system he uses to catch foraging animals and then retrieve them through the chimney. Ann uses the soil beneath their house’s crumbling floors to start a large vegetable garden. The electricity finally goes out, but the Delgados use their newfound survival methods to continue living while most other people starve to death.

Five years pass with the family subsisting on Ann’s garden and Jason’s captured animals, who now overrun the outside world. However, the house’s failing foundation continues worsening, causing the indoor garden’s soil to erode. Instead of bonding with the family, Jason also spends more time on unnecessary projects, further increasing rising tempers among everyone.

During a storm, one of the creatures opens a door from outside. Everyone hides while the monster stalks through the house. Graham tries to follow the entity back outside when it leaves, but the creature locks the door again.

Ruth observes that the water left behind by the monster came from the ocean. This leads her to posit that rather than aliens trapping them like they initially believed, dormant sea creatures rose from the ocean to reclaim a world that was once theirs. Ann realizes that the creature’s saltwater trail purposely poisoned their water supply and destroyed their crops, creating more argumentative conflict within the family.

A captured ferret bites Ruth, which causes her to come down with a bad fever requiring antibiotics. In a frustrated rage, Jason tries using a restored car to ram his way out of the garage. Jason is unsuccessful, but the family subsequently finds cracks in the floor indicating a way to access sewer pipes connecting all of the homes in the neighborhood.

Believing their dead neighbor Max Richardson might have antibiotics on hand because he was a dentist, Ann ventures through the sewer to Max’s house. Ann successfully retrieves the medicine, then fights her way past a creature to return home. Ruth eventually recovers, although Ann loses the handgun during her confrontation with the monster.

Concerned that the creature will target them for revenge, Jason instructs Ann to hide with the children. With their family falling apart and resources dwindling, Ann and Graham instead contend that their family should come together to fight back. Their resolve renewed, Jason, Ann, Ruth, and Graham devise a plan to escape their house by rigging the home with traps to capture the creature.

Floodwaters assault the house. Following a protracted confrontation, the Delgados successfully capture an attacking creature. Jason uses a knife to threaten the monster, but it refuses to open the door. Thinking back on everything that happened and what his daughter once said about a seemingly friendly “rainwalker,” Jason decides to compassionately cut the creature free instead. In a reciprocating act of mercy, the monster opens the door, allowing the family outside.

The creature’s growl causes other monsters to let the Delgados pass safely. Their destroyed house crumbles into a sinkhole behind them. With the rain now stopped, the family commandeers a neighbor’s abandoned boat to set sail in search of a new home.

Via narration, an adult Ruth mentions they never saw the sea creatures again. The Delgados eventually make contact with other survivors over a radio.

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Review:

Count the cliches that introduce the Delgados in “The Last House.” They’re one of those “movie cute” families, where eight-year-old Ruth and twelve-year-old Graham cheerily bounce on their parents’ bed to get everyone going in the morning. Their father Jason playfully holds a donut box out of arm’s reach as everyone chattily talks over one another. It’s not all giggles and good times though. A pile of unopened envelopes stamped with admonishing red letters indicates the family is having some trouble making financial ends meet. Bills will have to wait. Right now, Jason just wants to greet his wife Ann with a loving kiss and give the family’s dog Cassidy a hearty scratch behind the ear to make sure the audience meets everyone first.

Balancing a shrinking bankbook isn’t the only activity temporarily put on pause. Literally everything else has to be put on hold too. Because when the Delgados attempt to open any door while an unrelenting rainstorm pours outside, they discover all of the exits are inexplicably locked. Breaking windows doesn’t do anything either, because seemingly sentient raindrops simply seal up any holes with water. Gas and electricity still work, but whatever is trapping them in their house has disabled the internet and all electronic forms of outside communication.

Through Morse code messages and erasable markers on wipe boards, neighbors confirm everyone in the area, perhaps even throughout the world, is similarly trapped in their homes. Some of them are a little too quick to summarize individual predicaments, as one captive couple immediately lets everyone know, “this was a one night stand lol.” You’ve been stuck inside for a few minutes. Maybe let things settle for a beat before publicly announcing second thoughts about your hookup, yeah?

Adapting almost instantly to a thoroughly disturbing situation comes easily for Jason and his family. Here they are, unwillingly imprisoned by unknown captors with possibly paranormal powers, and not a single person panics. Their pantry is stocked with little more than peanut butter and popcorn, yet Jason confidently assures everyone they can ration their food supply even though they have no idea when, or even if, their ordeal will end. I’m not sure how a family of four can make months of meals out of marshmallows and cocktail sauce, but somehow the Delgados manage.

Two weeks go by and still no one succumbs to even a slight hint of stir craziness. The little girl laughs as raindrops swirl in weird patterns on the windows. The parents host a dance party for everyone to let loose with smiling faces that don’t have a care in the world. The Delgados also jubilantly sing along to a DVD screening of “Annie” as though they’ve totally forgotten unknown entities took over the planet.

Although this premise touches both sci-fi and horror, “The Last House” doesn’t feature much from either of those genres. The movie is more of a survival drama, except it isn’t even all that dramatic. After only three movie minutes of the starving family screaming irrational accusations at each other, their resolve is magically renewed as a montage shows Jason constructing an animal trap and pulley system through the chimney while Ann starts a vegetable garden in exposed soil beneath crumbling floorboards. If your favorite part of “The Martian” was watching Matt Damon grow a potato, “The Last House” will please you with plenty more montages where Rube Goldberg contraptions collect rainwater and capture wild game.

Apparently, nothing important happens over the next five years, not that everything depicted thus far was always noteworthy either. With the kids now acting out as angsty teens whose moods are made worse by claustrophobic conditions, “The Last House” jumps forward half a decade only to continue stubbornly stalling on explanations for the mystery or major monster reveals by instead challenging the Delgados with more minor obstacles.

An animal bite causes one family member to fall ill with an infection. Where would someone acquire antibiotics at a time like this? With underground access to other homes now available, Jason and Ann remember one of their dead neighbors was a dentist. Surely he’ll have the necessary supplies because, you know, medical professionals always keep pharmacy stock stored in their personal medicine cabinets, right? “The Last House” is far from the first formulaic film to go big on illogical character behavior, but its script sure is unashamed about how often it relies on serendipitously silly plot points.

The perhaps generous “okay, whatever” score of 50/100 reflects the film’s acceptable effectiveness as an average survival story. As the suspenseful creature feature it occasionally attempts to be, “The Last House” leaves much more to be desired due to how few thrills and action-packed payoffs actually exist.

The Delgados must make the best of a bad situation when they discover they only own two DVDs to entertain them indefinitely. If supernatural rain ever sealed someone inside their house for real, they’d better hope for something more rewatchable than “The Last House” as one of those options.

Review Score: 50

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