The doors are locked without a lock,
The windows barred without a bar.
No stepping out to take a walk,
No Sunday cruise around the block,
No driveway upkeep on the car,
No short but friendly neighbor talk,
No evening wishes on a star,
No welcoming a guest to knock…
I guess it’s just how things now are.
_____________________

MPA rating: PG-13

It shouldn’t really be a surprise that the Netflix movie machine churns out disappointing fare, but I had hoped The Last House would be better than it is. I like the ideas behind films that posit how life would fundamentally change given some hypothetical cataclysm, and other films have turned out really well playing with the notion of not being able to go outside, such as Right at Your Door (trapped by toxic fallout) or The Last Days (trapped by lethal agoraphobia). But The Last House is one seriously janky example of this peculiar apocalyptic subgenre.

Wagner Moura and Greta Lee play married couple Jason and Ann, who live in happy suburban bliss in Seattle with their two kids Ruth and Graham. When a strange rain storm hits, they find that their house is completely sealed by a barrier of water, trapping them and everyone else inside their homes. And while some people are likewise trapped outside, they soon regret it as invisible hostile creatures use the rain for cover. As years pass, the family is forced to use their wits to survive and find a way free.

Simply put, the setup of The Last House is hard to take seriously. When the reason for the sealing of buildings is revealed, it opens a lot of questions about why the creatures behind it would take such an indirect manner of wiping out humanity, and the threadbare themes of mercy by the end really don’t make sense in the larger context. While the survival elements are sometimes interesting, they also strain credulity, as when Jason manages to defy gravity and fashion a small game trap through the chimney. And I’m rather annoyed by the family dynamic where one partner accuses the other of not taking things seriously because they’re holding onto hope and not folding to utter despair (see The End of Oak Street for the same thing).

Moura and Lee do their best to make The Last House at least watchable, but it’s the plot that falls apart by the end. Besides, I would think most of us still remember what it was like being trapped in our houses during the COVID era. We don’t need a worse version of that.

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

© 2026 S.G. Liput
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