I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) on Netflix
Lily Saylor cares for Iris Blum, a retired horror writer with dementia, at a remote house in Braintree, Massachusetts. A phone is torn from Lily's hands, and Iris calls her Polly.
- Netflix2.7/5
- IMDb4.6/1018,428 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lily Saylor arrives at a remote house in Braintree, Massachusetts, to care for Iris Blum, a retired horror writer with dementia. Iris's estate manager, Mr. Waxcap, hired her as a live-in nurse. A man built the house for his new bride, and the pair disappeared on their wedding day, leaving it unfurnished. On her first night, an unseen force tears the telephone from Lily's hands, and a figure in white is seen walking backwards. Black mold takes hold on a wall and spreads over the months, and the corner of the rug at the foot of the stairs is often flipped up, though Lily is the only person who walks on that floor. Iris calls Lily Polly, the name Mr. Waxcap says belongs to the heroine of The Lady in the Walls, her most popular novel.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Paula Prentiss, cast as the dementia-stricken horror writer Iris Blum, was director Osgood Perkins's only choice for the part; she was a family friend whose husband, Richard Benjamin, had performed with Perkins's father, Anthony Perkins.
- Osgood Perkins said the film's themes were meant to reflect his own attempts to connect with his dead father, the actor Anthony Perkins, and revealed this in a 2020 interview with director Mick Garris on Garris's podcast Post Mortem.
- Writer-director Osgood Perkins first intended the story to be about the daughter of a male horror novelist, but the idea changed, as he put it: "one day, it just changed".
