Reviews
“The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” Review – Netflix Series Hilariously Trolls Itself
Netflix‘s release of The Woman in the Window last year continued a trend of psychological thrillers centered on unreliable, unhinged protagonists trying to sleuth their way through murder mysteries despite obstacles like agoraphobia. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, most torn on whether the movie’s silliness and penchant for over-the-top melodrama was an asset or a flaw. Netflix trolls itself with its latest. “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” is far more digestible than its mouthful of a title, and the absurd satire builds to a hilarious punchline.
Anna (Kristen Bell) sits in front of a window every day, drinking bottles of wine and downing prescribed pills while watching life move on around her. She’s unable to cope with a tragic loss that broke her family. Hope for normalcy comes when a handsome new neighbor, Neil (Tom Riley), moves in across the street with his precocious daughter Emma (Samsara Yett). The trio hits it off swimmingly until Anna witnesses a gruesome murder. Or did she?
The entire cast plays the increasingly wacky story completely straight, opting for high camp over slapstick parody. Series creators Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson and Larry Dorf, and director Michael Lehman strike a particular comedic tone that will delight or confuse, much in the same way that James Wan’s Malignant polarized last year. No one is more committed to the exaggerating peculiarities of this world more than Bell, whose Anna is an unreliable narrator to the extreme. She pours entire bottles of wine into her glass at a time, and crossing the street in the rain causes her to collapse. Never mind Anna’s endless supply of casserole dishes, thanks to every single one of her chicken casseroles meeting a shattering end.
It’s the characters and the eccentricities that sustain curiosity and investment; the cookie-cutter murder mystery unraveling isn’t nearly as entertaining or as crucial as Anna’s unraveling as she continues to sabotage every social encounter or relationship in her orbit. The mystery even takes a while to warm up, with the series instead spending time developing the quirky characters and finding its satirical groove.
Once the pieces click in place, the series settles in as it builds toward an insanely hilarious punchline that makes the initial setup worth the wait. It’s a delightfully unhinged and satisfying payoff that makes it clear the entire series is one clever joke meticulously plotted for maximum impact. Of course, the most critical component that clinches it all together is just how straight the cast plays their parts to sell the absurdity of it all for laughs. It allows the humor of the situation to take center stage over the source material it’s drawing from to poke fun.
Ramras, Davidson, and Dorf transformed what could’ve easily become a standard lampooning of psychological thriller tropes with a brand of conventional humor. Instead, they opted for dry humor that doesn’t immediately show its hand. That can make for a rough adjustment period, but once acclimated, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” blossoms into a gleeful romp whose punchline will leave you cackling in glee and bewilderment. The title may be tough to remember, but the finale sticks with you.
Netflix premieres “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” on January 28, 2022.
Reviews
“Chucky” Season 3: Episode 6 Review – Ghosts and Gore Plunge the White House into Chaos and Terror
The story threads converge in “Panic Room,” the sixth episode of “Chucky“ Season 3. In the previous episode, a death row-bound Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) demanded that a dying Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) “go down in a blaze of glory and take as many with you on your way out.” Considering the last episode also ended with the gruesome eye gouging of President James Collins (Devon Sawa), “Panic Room” plunges the White House into chaos and terror as Chucky lays the groundwork for his most ambitious plan yet.
Warren Pryce (Gil Bellows) continues to reveal his true colors, giving First Lady Charlotte Collins (Lara Jean Chorostecki) no room to grieve, let alone process what’s happened, before he enlists a clean-up crew to cover up the President’s death. Charlotte attempts to shield her children from the truth, even as she can barely hold it together, but finds herself plagued by ghosts in more ways than one. Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur), Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) return to the White House once more under a scheduled playdate with Grant (Jackson Kelly), just in time for Chucky’s bid for White House control.
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Panic Room” emphasizes Charlotte’s dire plight to effectively establish the stakes that go beyond Chucky. Chorostecki gives a rousing physical performance as a woman caught between duty, family, and her own agency. As if that’s not enough, the supernatural confrontations continue, ramping up the horror and the worldbuilding thanks to the highly haunted White House. Charlotte isn’t coping well with any of it, and the arrival of a familiar face threatens to send her over the edge.
With so many of Warren Pryce’s minions about, Chucky has plenty of fodder to cull in delightfully gory ways, once again showcasing the series’ fantastic puppetry and SFX work. The aged doll design is exquisitely detailed, down to thinning silver hair and age spots, evoking an eerie uncanny valley between Good Guy toy and a real geriatric human. Brad Dourif’s spirited, reliable voiceover work further sells the effect, and continues to demonstrate that there are always new facets to the horror icon to discover.
CHUCKY — “Panic Room” Episode 306 — Pictured in this screengrab: Lara Jean Chorostecki as Charlotte Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
Jake, Devon, and Lexy are tenacious in their bid to thwart Chucky and retrieve Lexy’s sister, but they’re consistently multiple steps behind the pint-sized killer. “Panic Room” and the back half of Season 3 drive home why: there are no rules when it comes to Chucky. The highly adaptable killer may have a twisted moral code of his own- a gun lecture amidst a murder spree is so very Chucky. But he has no interest in predictability or authority. That extends to the voodoo that landed a dying killer in a doll’s body, one that’s now corrupted by Christian magic from a botched exorcism.
That development, along with the White House’s unique setting, means that anything can happen. There’s a thrill in the “anything goes” attitude and in the darkly funny ways that the series’ characters react to new developments.
The episode operates almost entirely on tension from Charlotte’s plight and Chucky’s maniacal machinations, clicking the moving parts into place and carefully maneuvering its players together for the final two episodes of the season. It builds to an insane conclusion with massive consequences for the final two episodes of the season. That forward momentum is thrilling but more exciting is what’s yet to come, thanks to the episode’s intriguing final frame.
“Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on USA & SYFY.
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