Rebecca Hall: 'Night House' character wants to believe in ghosts

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Rebecca Hall, who stars in the movie, The Night House, out Friday, said her character wants to believe that her late husband is contacting her. Hall plays Beth, a widow whose husband, Owen, recently died by suicide.

"The movie is really about grief," Hall said in a Zoom interview. "It's about one woman's grief and coming to terms with it."

Days after her husband's death, Beth begins to experience supernatural phenomena in the house she shared with him. Beth's phone receives texts and calls from Owen's number, and her stereo turns itself on.

The Night House is a horror movie, so the ghost ultimately begins to threaten Beth. Even so, Hall said Beth still hopes the ghost is Owen, because if it's not, then she would have no way of contacting her husband. The latter would be worse, Hall said.

"What's scarier, the idea that ghosts exist or that they don't, if you are someone who is grieving?" Hall asked rhetorically.

Beth once survived a near-death experience, and because of that does not believe in an afterlife. However, the shock of Owen's suicide and the mysterious occurrences in the house make Beth question her belief.

"To be in this situation of becoming a suicide survivor, dealing with not knowing who her husband was at all, is destabilizing to a psyche," Hall said.

The 39-year-old Hall said Beth is surprised to learn Owen even contemplated suicide. As Beth learns more about Owen's dark secrets, she hopes the supernatural occurrences can provide answers.

"If he was capable of that, then how much of a monster was he capable of being?" Hall asked.

The supernatural manifestations intensify throughout the film, assaulting Beth in her home. Hall said she improvised scenes of being attacked by invisible forces.

"The potential to make a fool of myself was so enormous that in a way it liberated me from any self-consciousness," Hall said. "I knew I was going to look ridiculous and make the crew laugh, and that was fine with me."

Hall has appeared in films with extensive visual effects like Godzilla vs. Kong and Iron Man 3. She said The Night House used much simpler techniques to convey the spirit stalking Beth.

Beth will notice shapes form and turn to her in the shadows of a room. Hall said the art department designed the set to shift without utilizing computer visual effects.

"They would often carve out very carefully the profile of the man into the side of a door," Hall said. "But you would only see it as the other door was closing and it just cast the shadow at the right angle."

The Night House premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Hall had another film at the 2021 Sundance.

She directed Passing, the story of the friendship between two Black women (Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga), one of whom passes for White. Hall also wrote the screenplay, adapted from the novel by Nella Larsen.

Hall said she always had wanted to direct, but did not feel ready.

"I watched the directors whom I had worked with work and studied that," Hall said. "I was just biding my time, really, until I was able to get this particular movie made."

Passing is a black-and-white film that deals with a complex racial subject. Hall said she initially thought it was too much to attempt as her first film, but finally decided to just do it.

"For a long time I thought that's just a very arrogant kind of film to make as your first film," Hall said. "Directing any film is an act of arrogance, so I might as well get on and direct the one that I know how to direct."

Searchlight Pictures will release The Night House on Friday, and Netflix will release Passing later this year.