10 horror hidden gems on Netflix

8. I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House

If you love Shirley Jackson novels, you’re sure to appreciate I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, an artistic and quietly unnerving exploration of haunted house stories. It begins when Lily Saylor, a live-in nurse, moves in with Iris Blum, a retired horror writer with dementia. The house itself has an odd history, built by a groom for his new bride before the couple disappeared on their wedding day. Lily herself is so terrified of scary stories she can barely even glance at the horror novels which line the shelves of Iris’s house. From her first night onward, it becomes clear that the fear is not solely contained within the pages of Iris’s books.

A series of small, inventive details make this horror story memorable: the creeping mold that bubbles beneath the paint on a wall, the corner of the floor mat which inexplicably gets flipped up, and the fact that Iris always calls Lily by the name of one of her protagonists. The slow, creeping pace makes the fear feel more authentic; this movie doesn’t evoke the keening violin-strings of Hollywood horror, but rather the dread that comes when you’re home alone at night; the suspicion of a door about to open on its own, of a face about to appear in a window, though it (almost) never does.

This is definitely not your average horror movie. It works with atmosphere more than true terror, slowly building a picture that is as beautiful as it is unsettling. Lily’s first person narration, which begins with the proclamation that she is 28 and will not live to see 29, lends a surreal and storybook atmosphere to the entire movie.