Chelsea Lupkin
No one ever expects to move into a haunted house, yet the success of many classic horror films, like The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist, quite literally hinges on the unexpected phenomenon. But what if the people who purchased a house already knew it was haunted and moved in anyway? In Bryce McGuire’s SXSW short Every House is Haunted, that’s exactly what happens. In a deconstruction of the beloved horror trope, the acclaimed Night Swim director explores the lives of a couple who are so unwilling to address their real problems that they think moving into a haunted house is going to save them. Darkly humorous with some incredible visuals that both scare and warm the heart, Every House is Haunted is a refreshing reimagining of what it means to tell a ghost story.
“Wouldn’t it save everyone a lot of trouble if the realtor told them the house was haunted?”
Having worked in the studio system writing horror for the past five years, McGuire confesses that there’s always a moment in the writing process where he wanted to “jump the tracks” and let the characters in on the movie they were trapped in. “Wouldn’t it save everyone a lot of trouble if the realtor told them the house was haunted?,” McGuire reflects. And as the idea bloomed, he contemplated who might move in anyway. “And the answer to that question really lined up with my experience during the pandemic where we all saw the lengths that people would go to avoid the underlying problems in their lives, their relationships, their world.”
Kate Cobb as Maya in Every House is Haunted
Every House is Haunted is a film about healing. Haunting aside, it’s a surprisingly heartfelt story with a distinctive maternal ethos explored through surreal moments with ghosts. Sure, Maya, played by Kate Cobb, should be afraid of her new roommates, but why? They fill a void she wasn’t quite aware needed to be filled. And when she discovers that the ghosts need her too, we see a horror film embrace the unlikeliest of kinships – with the supernatural – in a surreal fever dream of a movie. “I wanted to branch out and try something a little different than the projects I had been working on. I was really inspired by the way Bong Joon Ho and other Korean filmmakers aren’t afraid to balance melodrama, broad comedy, horror and mystery in a single movie, sometimes even in the course of five or ten minutes.“
Representing the nuances of Maya’s character and her life’s history, in juxtaposition with the dead, McGuire uses a varied approach to shooting, which works to strengthen the audience’s connection with his character. “We have old disposable camera footage, we shot the ghost’s death flashes on an old medium format camera, there’s i-phone footage, it was all over the place. But it felt right to me as we’re sifting through the collage of Maya’s emotional attic.” The result is a beautiful amalgamation of spooky vignettes captured by cinematographer Colton Davie (who also shot the original Night Swim short) with special effects by Sam Ragland.
An incredibly atmospheric short horror, Every House is Haunted is an unlikely feel-good movie despite hinting at something much more sinister lurking beyond the walls.