The Last House (dir. Louis Leterrier)

by Jack Martin | Aug 7, 2026

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 112 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 7 August 2026

WHO’S IN THE LAST HOUSE?

Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Riley Chung, Emma Ho, Noah Alexander Sosnowski, Gabriel Barbosa, Audrey Anderson, Sid Edwards

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Louis Leterrier (director, producer), Matthew Robinson (writer), Kori Adelson, Peter Chernin, Joe Neurauter, Oly Obst and Jenno Topping (producers), Yair Elazar Glotman (composer), Pål Ulvik Rokseth (cinematographer), Adam Gough (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A family is suddenly trapped inside their house, and must survive together…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE LAST HOUSE?

“Everyone remembers where they were the day the rain came,” so claims the opening narration of director Louis Leterrier’s The Last House. But really, it might as well swap out “the rain” with a particular respiratory virus that shut down the world six years ago.

Yes, everyone still has traumatic memories of when the rapid spread of COVID-19 caused a worldwide lockdown, with most people confined to their homes and left with little to do other than wait the whole thing out. To add insult to injury, there were even movies written, made and released that very year which capitalised on public paranoia over the potential apocalyptic nature of it all (remember that Michael Bay-produced pandemic flick Songbird? No? Probably for the best). But Leterrier’s film, and by extension Matthew Robinson’s script, is the first bit of COVID-sploitation cinema in a long while that not only recaptures the discomfort and resilience we all felt whilst cooped up inside for extended periods of time, but also recontextualises it for a solid thriller that is far from perfect but just about works even without the obvious real-world parallels.

As that narration hints, the Netflix film begins on a day like any other, with family patriarch Jason (Wagner Moura) returning home from an early morning fishing session to find his wife Ann (Greta Lee) still in bed and their young children Ruth (Riley Chung) and Graham (Noah Alexander Sosnowski) begging to go out and get themselves a Christmas tree. Except, all of a sudden, a rainstorm carrying a mysterious sealant locks the family and all their suburban neighbours inside with no way out and no way to electronically communicate with others, forcing them all to survive with whatever resources they may have. Eventually, things reach a point where extreme measures have to be taken, especially when it becomes very apparent that there is something lurking outside that may or may not be of this world.

The premise is certainly aping the mix of post-apocalyptic thriller and family drama found in the likes of A Quiet Place or even Netflix’s similarly dystopian Bird Box franchise, but the addition of that COVID-19 allegory gives The Last House an eerier sense of relevance to our current social climate. Robinson’s script initially plays around with how people react to being locked inside for what they assume will be a short-term period, with one of the big concerns among this family being the fact that they only have DVDs of Annie and Air Force One for screen entertainment. Soon, though, the screenwriter taps into the growing bleakness of uncertainty as the days turn into weeks, months and possibly longer, with the hopelessness clouding over some of these characters becoming harder and harder to ignore, especially with food supplies running low – a situation that’s partially fixed via inventive methods thanks to a handily disintegrating chimney – and desperate decisions being made about the family’s elderly dog.

While these things may not have been our exact experiences during the lockdowns (or at least, I hope they weren’t), Robinson and Leterrier both do well to approach it all as though they could have been, since you’re always thinking about those parallels and how close to reality they may be hitting. However, that can often get in the way of the actual storytelling, as the respective writer and director are perhaps too aware of what they’re symbolising and, because of that, there’s less room for the plot and characters to feel as equally fleshed out. Nobody in this movie gives a bad performance, especially Moura and Lee who are both easily carrying the movie on their more-than-beyond capable shoulders, but while they and their younger co-stars are a likeable unit their characters don’t really stretch beyond certain familial archetypes, and they keep a fair distance from genuine complexity. The same goes for the plotting, which starts to tread into sillier territory during a second half that combines Shyamalan-style twists along with the mechanics you would find in a Home Alone movie, and features revelations as to whatever may be outside that perhaps require more explanation than what we are given.

But while it doesn’t always offer the level of satisfaction that a film like this should probably offer, The Last House works well as a mystery-thriller that’s easy to get invested in because of the concept and much of its execution. Leterrier’s zippy directorial style doesn’t always suit the contained, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of this dilapidating suburban house, but he is good at building tension as you see this family doing whatever it can to survive, and then feel for them whenever the literal outside forces come by to screw everything up. On top of that, it’s also a good-looking movie, with cinematography by Pål Ulvik Rokseth that makes even the dullest corners of this house shine fairly well on the screen.

For those who may still carry that trauma from the year 2020, it may be something of a triggering watch because of how closely it does resemble being in that lockdown mindset and environment, neither of which are understandably anything we’d ever want to go through again in our lifetimes. If you feel like you can power through it, though, you’ll get a pretty decent movie that is boosted by an intriguing set-up, strong performances and filmmaking that gets as much mileage out of its COVID-era allegory as it can.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Last House is a sturdy thriller that leans hard into its COVID-19 lockdown allegory, sometimes a bit too much so, and generates some good tension amid strong performances and zippy filmmaking which holds it together, even when the plot descends into sillier territory.