The Last House Review: Loses Its Spark on the Back Half

Alex Schlerf
Aug 9
5 min read

Director Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me, The Incredible Hulk) takes a break from his typical big-IP blockbusters with The Last House, a straight-to-streaming Netflix movie starring Wagner Moura and Greta Lee.

Synopsis:

"A family suddenly sealed inside their home must work together to survive against dwindling resources and the ominous threat keeping them trapped."

Cast: Wagner Moura, Greta Lee, Riley Chung, Noah Alexander Sosnowski, Emma Ho, Gabriel Chung

Release Date: Streaming on Netflix Now

Family Dynamic Works Well

I think the one thing that works the best in The Last House is the familial dynamic created by the actors. For this movie to work on any level, you need to actually care about the people involved in the tragedy. Not only does each actor do well in their own right, but they actually do feel like a real family - even with an age jump for the kids in the back half of the film. I've been a big fan of Wagner Moura for a while now and this movie continued to cement that. His character is incredibly likable and a seriously great Dad in the first few sequences in this film, making him endearing from the start. I didn't totally agree with the turn they made with his character later on, but he also plays that out as well as possible. Greta Lee isn't necessarily given a difficult bit of material here and she still stands out. Big fan of hers whenever I see her on screen.

I typically find myself just shrugging off the performances of child actors in movies like these. It's typically not a huge role, especially when you have two relatively big actors as the parents. However, all four of the child actors here did a really good job. None of them have a particularly large role, but I think they all help play into that actual devastation you feel for this family. Riley Chung and Noah Alexander Sosnowski start us off before the time jump, with Emma Ho and Gabriel Chung taking over after. I really liked how there was a noticeable change in their personalities in the time change and that's credit to Ho/Chung.

Grounded First Hour Had Me Hooked

Although I remembered the trailers for this marketing it as more of an action-packed thriller, what I ended up enjoying the most was the grounded moments from the first half of the film. It feels like a realistic depiction of what would happen in this scenario and the name of the game is really survival. However, it's not survival from big monsters, but rather rationing food and having to stay in the same place for an extended period of time. I found some of the scenarios here pretty fascinating and I think the descent (before the time jump) feels natural. It's really a human story to start and it's hard to not smile watching them all put on old movies or dance to music. It also leaves the world around them very up in the air, which I think makes this more of a human-focused movie more than anything else. It becomes really cool to see the family each play their own roles in the survival - Moura and Lee are taking charge, while also teaching the kids certain things they may need depending on how long the disaster continues. My last point here is that although I would've liked to see some different perspectives, it was interesting the way they portrayed the other families on their street. There's some pretty brutal interactions and conversations, which emphasizes the difficulty of the situation they are in really well.

Turn to Sci-Fi Lost Me

Once this movie takes a dip into sci-fi and more thriller elements, it just completely lost me. There's two parts to this, with the first being that it eliminates all of the interesting human tropes from the first hour. Obviously there had to be some point where they involve the monsters and things delve into chaos, but I just wish it had been more natural instead of all the craziness just flooding in at once. I no longer felt any care for the group as everything was no longer rooted in anything real.

The other part would be that these sequences are just terribly crafted. We'll get into the editing side of this shortly, but this boils down to the direction and set piece choices. Everything with the monsters is just completely all over the place and the lighting makes it almost impossible to follow. Eventually, it just becomes ridiculous some of the things that are happening. Lee's character goes on this insane journey with about 30 minutes to go and even when you think it can't get any worse than that, there's about 3 more sequences that are just flat out bad. Some of the characters make choices that don't make any actual sense, but are clearly just meant to move a certain scenario in a way that can setup what the filmmakers think will be a cool sequence. The problem is that I could excuse that if said sequences were actually interesting to watch, but they aren't.

Poorly Edited and Rushed

I'd like to say that this plays into the final 45 minutes only, but the editing really affects the entire film's quality. The film itself just doesn't flow smoothly, even from the first minute. You can't really sit with too many moments or facial expressions from the actors because just as you do, it'll make some absurd cut that doesn't make much sense. This really is felt in the action sequences, where it's really just impossible to tell what's going on. There's so much going on and without quality editing, you really get lost in it all. Unfortunately this editing style makes the film start to feel rushed in a lot of places. I would've loved to get a few more slower moments in the beginning to really hammer down all the positives I noted earlier. Instead, you can feel a little overwhelmed with how much is happening in such a short amount of time. I'm not sure this was a runtime issue - I think if it was just tied together more smoothly it really could've helped the quality.

Final Thoughts:

The Last House can feel a little outdated at times with the 2020-lockdown vibes, but it's still got good moments even today. Sadly, there's some technical elements that prevent this from feeling any better than an average straight-to-streaming film.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

The Last House is Ranked 47th out of the 56 new releases that I've seen this year.

Editor's Note: I've only included the top 20 from my 2026 new releases list, for editing purposes.

2026 Ranked: