A beautiful documentary telling the real story of a homeowner living with a haunting. Bridging the paranormal, real science and the human experience this documentary shows a detailed look at what could be the most haunted house in America.

A documentary gives us the opportunity to know a little more, in detail, the events or circumstances that led to living the reasons why this record is being developed. But, when you don’t have enough facts or the investigation leaves loose ends like hungry dogs in a butcher shop, the documentary only helps to publicize the situation to make way for others to join in relating new events that lead to the result.

In The House In Between (2020) we get to see how an alleged haunting takes place at Alice Jackson’s house in Florence, Mississippi. It all starts as a desire for a new house; a house that was built from scratch on a promising piece of land. And as the saying goes, “be careful with what you wish for”, Alice didn’t expect her dream to become a nightmare. She came to experience several paranormal events that made her wonder if it was just the house settling or if it was something else. Alice couldn’t come to terms with her situation, but she couldn’t ask her neighbors for help since the town is Bible-built. She decides to trust a few persons that have dedicated their lives to the documenting of paranormal activities. And so, the story begins…

If you haven’t heard much about this house before, it’s probably because it hasn’t been on the pop culture radar as other haunted places. Therefore, this is the perfect excuse to let the house be known through the making of a half-baked documentary. And, in no intention, is the term “half-baked” used to demerit the product but just merely call it for its dead-end formula. It is entertaining, and more on it will be mentioned as this review develops, but it seems to be more of a long promo video for a house that isn’t as popular as widely known so-called hauntings.

The viewer might get startled by the nature of the content since everything claims to be real and be minimally edited. And it’s understandable. It embraces a dark ambience that, even if the house seems peacefully quiet and a perfect spot to get away from overpopulated cities, it gets eerie with every frame of shown footage do to its “scary because it’s real” nature. It’s even more terrifying than watching the franchise of Paranormal Activity. Were those films even scary? I never jumped once watching the films. Then again, we all have different levels of tolerance when it comes to horror. But, was that even horror?

The House In Between is very well crafted and it’s even remarkably beautiful how the investigation, thing that seems to never have crossed the investigators’ minds in ten years of documenting the paranormal events, comes together through the union of its small details that were probably neglected in the past and are now considered to add value to the mystery. After all, it could’ve been the new approach they took during the time documented; it’s evident that the attention of its directors, Steve Gonsalves and Kendall Whelpton, was needed to make the story bloom.

The House In Between could be considered the “cookie dough” of horror documentaries; it seems unbaked, you eat it and end up liking it. As a documentary, the viewer might feel a little betrayed since it seems to get so close to uncovering the mystery and, yet, so happy for how the story goes beyond a haunting to the existing concern for the owner of the house and her well-being. In the end, the documentary is proof that teamwork gives good results when you mix a bunch of people that have equal goals in common and have a lot of love for what they do..

 

The House In Between
RATING: N/A
Runtime: 81 Mins.
Directed By:
Written By:
N/A

About the Author

Brandon Henry was born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the border of San Diego. His birthplace is the main reason nothing really scares him (kidding… it’s a very safe place). His love for horror films came when his parents accidentally took him to watch Scream, at the age of 6, thinking that it was a safe-choice because it starred “that girl from Friends”. At 12, he experienced the first of many paranormal events in his life. While he waits to be possessed by the spirit of a satanic mechanic, he works as a Safety Engineer and enjoys going to the theater, watching movies and falling asleep while reading a book. Follow him on Instagram @brndnhnry and on Twitter @brandon_henry.