The Surprising Practical Effects in ‘The Night House’ That Made the Entity So Scary

Meagan Navarro

The Ritual filmmaker David Bruckner delivered no shortage of potent scares in last year’s The Night House, now available to stream on HBO Max. 

The film stars Rebecca Hall as Beth, a woman reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Left alone in the lakeside house he built for her; Beth quickly becomes plagued by nightmares and visions of a haunting entity. She begins to look through her husband’s belongings for answers, unearthing disturbing secrets in the process.

One of the most terrifying aspects of The Night House is the innovative way that Bruckner uses negative space to create unsettling imagery of the entity. 

With the film now available on streaming, Southbound writer/director and The Night House entity effects designer Patrick Horvath took to Twitter to detail the sleight of the eye practical work that went into creating the entity’s chilling appearances. It took a lot of trial and error, mannequins, forced perspective, and innovative silhouettes built into the set design.

Horvath’s designs of the entity ranged from subtle, like using window treatments to offer glimpses in the background, to designing arched hallways for Beth’s encounter with the Negative Space Man in the climax.

One of the most memorable scares in the film featured a silhouette against a pillar’s crown molding, which turns to look directly at Beth when she notices it. That silhouette was practically carved and built into the molding. Bruckner’s idea to adjust the design of the shelf in the background completed the Negative Space Man’s outline.

Horvath’s informative thread spotlights not just the range of scares and the level of detail that went into creating each but how much of a group effort it took to deliver them. That they’re almost entirely practical makes them all the more impressive.

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