REVIEW: Netflix’s “Things Head & Seen” is Unlike Most Psychological Thrillers

Buying an old home comes with a price. In some cases, a hauntingly high price. But what if those haunts were not there to scare you, but protect you. In Things Heard & Seen, based on the novel by Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear, the tale follows a young couple, George (James Norton) and Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) Clare, who moves into an old home in New York’s Hudson Valley after George takes a teaching position at a local college. As the film progresses, Catherine begins discovering that the house is more than just wood and paint, but alive. At the same time she is also learning that her husband may not be the person, she thought him to be.

Directors and screenwriters, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini take a different approach to the horror genre with Things Heard & Seen. Instead of the haunts residing in the home with the desire to end those who reside in it, the haunts act more as guardian angels sent to protect the homeowner from outside horrors. This fresh perspective adds a bit more mystery to the tale and a lot less scares; making this film more of a psychological thriller rather than an actual horror film. It also allows for a greater juxtaposition between the horrors that lie in the world of the living and the horrors that lie in the afterlife.

However, the film does get lost in its own story. As the film progress, the film forgets all about the haunted house aspect of the film, to instead focus on the mystery of George Clare and the inequality between George and Catherine. There are multiple references made throughout the film about this inequality and the basic inequality between women and men, yet no steps towards equality are made. Instead, frustration begins to set in because Catherine refuses to do anything about her conniving husband while George refuses to be a decent human being. This makes for a very confusing story and a very disappointing ending.

Seyfried plays the role of Catherine Clare, a young wife asked to give up her dreams of the big city to move to the Hudson Valley for her husband’s job. James Norton carries the heavier of the two roles as George Clare. Egotistical and power hungry, Norton is tasked with masking these tendencies behind Clare’s charming exterior, and he executes it perfectly. There are many minor characters that float in and out of the film, including Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer, Colony’s Alex Neustaedter, and Homeland’s F. Murray Abraham. However, many of these characters are honestly just plot pieces that do not really add to the plot.

Things Heard & Seen has the foundation to be a very good film. However, the film looses it’s identity within the first ten minutes, which makes it a long film to watch.

Grade: C-