House of Good and Evil 2013

Maggie Conley, Rae Olivier, has a miscarriage after an argument with her husband, Chris Conley, Christian Oliver. To save their marriage, they move to a large house in rural Virginia, hoping a fresh setting will help them rebuild. They are met by a real estate agent, Rob Bradley, Rob Neukirch, who explains that the house has been converted into a duplex, with a quiet, elderly couple, the Andersons, Jordan Rhodes, renting the other half. Bradley also notes that constant storms have made public utilities expensive, so he suggests they use cell phones and a generator to stay connected and self-sufficient.

After showing them around, Bradley discovers a locked door and promises to return in a week with the key. Meanwhile, Chris resists Maggie’s offer to start the generator and vows to handle it on his own. That night, Chris drinks mixed alcoholic beverages, and Maggie, frustrated by his renewed drinking, declines to share the bed. The tension between them thickens as Maggie experiences a nightmare about the locked room, its vines winding toward an umbilical cord, a disturbing image that stays with her as she tries to settle in.

When Chris heads into town for supplies, Maggie forces herself to explore the locked room. She hears a loud, insistent ringing from a rotary-style telephone and grows miffed at Chris when he dismisses her fears. On a walk together, he points out that the telephone lines are still down, and Maggie accuses him of not supporting her, her anxiety mounting as she feels increasingly isolated in the house.

The couple’s struggle is amplified by poor cell reception, forcing Maggie to venture to a clearing to make calls. She is repeatedly frightened away by strange noises in the trees and by the persistent ringing from the Andersons’ house, a sound that seems to haunt her. She makes several failed attempts to meet the Andersons, finally encountering Mr. Anderson one night after the generator stalls. Dressed in a nightgown and feeling vulnerable, Maggie does not engage with his suggestive comments as he offers to help restart the generator.

During these tense exchanges, Mrs. Anderson is heard speaking on the phone, and Maggie’s curiosity grows. She eventually breaks into the Andersons’ house, apologizes, and tries to talk with them. Mrs. Anderson explains that her husband is a firefighter, though his role is mostly a desk job due to age and the decline of fires nearby. The revelation unsettles Maggie, who senses a troubling parallel between the Andersons and the life she imagines for herself, especially when Mrs. Anderson hints at trouble within their marriage and Mr. Anderson’s alleged roughness.

When Chris finally returns, Maggie confronts him in a rage, and he knocks her unconscious. She accuses him of domestic violence, but he dismisses her as hysterical. During dinner, their argument erupts again, and Maggie storms away from the table. In a confrontation that echoes the earlier threats, she clutches an axe, shouting the words she heard echoed by Mrs. Anderson—describing Chris as a violent monster. Mr. Anderson appears and belittles Chris, even offering to kill Maggie if needed.

The confrontation spirals: Chris attacks Mr. Anderson, who fatally stabs him, and Maggie retaliates by killing Mr. Anderson with the axe. Maggie returns inside and calls out for Mrs. Anderson, whom she had glimpsed through a window. A scream from inside is followed by a series of thuds, and the house seems to close in on itself as the chaos subsides.

When Bradley returns, he discovers the previously locked room has become a shrine to Maggie’s lost baby, and Maggie sits beside Chris’ decomposing corpse, a disturbing tableau that hints at a mind unmoored by grief. The police later explain that Maggie apparently descended into madness after losing Chris, choking on his own vomit the same night they arrived. The Andersons suddenly pull up in their car, claiming they have only just returned from a vacation; Maggie’s alleged haunting presence, it turns out, may have been a product of her grief-fueled imagination.