The thin tertiary characters existing solely to nudge the plot this way or that have a way of laying out their whole fate within moments of their first appearance. Berman and Pulcini bank on suspense, despite a queasy inevitability being the strongest thing this retread of the familiar has going for it. Regardless of the greater significance attached to the actions each character takes, their motivations and outcomes announce themselves well in advance to destroy any attempted sense of mystery. And yet their dull-edged filmmaking overcooks any clever novelty of the original text in potboiler waters, until it’s all but indistinguishable from the dashed-off horror-tinged thrillers Netflix pumps out en masse to fill their library. The pedigree of co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, Oscar nominees once upon a time for their American Splendor screenplay, would suggest that they recognized a worthy concept in Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear when they took the job adapting it. By the conclusion, she’s achieved a grisly form of freedom.
She begins the film in thrall of his toxic influence, internalizing his offhanded criticisms and expelling them in the form of bulimia during her first scene. Like a trusted confidante urging her out of a bad relationship, the supernatural elements complement and comment upon the primary plot thread of her curdling marriage, rather than terrorizing for their own sake. Catherine feels like a hostage in her own home, and though the ominously buzzing night-lights and hallucinations of bloodied mutant fetuses in the kitchen sink drain aren’t helping her fragile mental state, they’re not the real sources of menace in her life. He’s the most malevolent force in what technically qualifies as a haunted house film, an oddly angled inflection on the mini-genre in which the intrusive specters may have plans of their own and death may not be the worst thing in the world.
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