THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN (2025)

Streaming on Shudder from Chroma!
Directed/Written by Harry Aspinwall.
Check out the trailer here!

A man posing as a real estate agent (Clive Russell) brings random people to an empty house to feed it souls. When a young runaway (Bobby Rainsbury) breaks into the home for a place to squat for a bit, she forms a connection with the house. But what happens once the house becomes hungry again?

Taking place within one house and captured on stationary cameras, THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN is a meditative sort of film, where the terror comes in subtle, but powerful waves. This is one of those films that’s not going to work for many horror fans who prefer more wham-bang action, gory special effects, and a frantic pace. It’s more akin with films like Osgood Perkins’ I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE or Steven Sodoberg’s PRESENCE, where something supernatural is going on, but it is more…realistic? If that makes sense? Whether I am or am not a believer in ghosts aside, I don’t think hauntings are like what transpires in THE CONJURING movies with thunderous noise and shit flying everywhere. Personally, if I consider hauntings to be real, they are going to show up in more subtle forms—otherwise they would be seen more often. I guess that’s the way I see it, though I do love a good loud and violent haunting on screen now and then. So, seeing the little things occur in these static shots of rooms as the movie goes on makes it all feel a little more authentic, a little more close to home, and a little more personal. And that’s what this film is. It’s more of a quiet and personal take on a haunted house film.

I loved THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN on a technical level in terms of camerawork and how it reveals a story simply through action or inaction and conversations that one feels like they are eavesdropping on. We are made privy to what’s happening through some phone calls between the girl and someone on the phone and then some interactions between the realtor and those interested in buying the house, but for the most part, the way the static camera captures action going on in a few specific rooms of the house is what this film offers up in terms of telling its story. The house and the relator have a special bond—an agreement between them that he will provide people for it to consume and it provides him with…well, I won’t say, but they share an extremely interesting relationship between one another, not unlike the relationship between the little vampire and her keeper in both LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and LET ME IN. Still, the house has no dialog. It’s through these subtle actions that you begin to understand the complexity of the relationship it shares with the relator and the runaway girl.

Experimental and arthousey? Yes, yes, it is. The performances are distant as there are no closeups or POV shots. Just a camera standing some distance away in the middle of the room capturing what’s going on around it. Characters come in and out of frame without the camera moving at all, so one only gets pieces to the puzzle and unlike 80% of the movies out there, you must put it all together yourself.

There is a huge beating heart to this film. It requires a little magic thinking, sort of the same magic that makes you want to believe in the TOY STORY concept where the toys you play with have lives of their own once you put them down and go away. Does that concept go for houses? What does it feel like when a loving growing family is inside? And what does it feel like when it is empty and alone? Having just sold the house I grew up in, I found myself wandering through the empty house the last few days I was there, saying goodbye in my own way, taking all of this into consideration. It’s silly from some angle, but still, even if there is a sliver of some kind of soul in a home, one would wish the best for it after moving on. These are the types of thoughts that are evoked from THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN. Given the slow pace, it does give one the time to let the mind wander, that’s for sure.

This is a little film. One you most likely haven’t heard about. But if you like meaningful horror in increments that really do hit deep once all the cards are on the table, sit with THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN. It’s challenging and takes a long time of sitting and watching a single POV, but if you’re patient, the climax is explosive and as tense as can be.