The Last House Review: Who Trapped Greta Lee & Wagner Moura In This Movie?

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The trapped Delgados huddled around their window in The Last House

Despite having plenty going for it, including an intriguing genre premise, Netflix's The Last House is one of the worst films of the year so far.

Published Aug 7, 2026, 2:59 AM EDT

Alex is the Senior Editor of Reviews & Prestige Content, overseeing ScreenRant's film reviews as one of its Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master's in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, conveniently a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.

I sat down to watch The Last House, the new Netflix film from director Louis Leterrier, feeling mostly intrigued. The premise – a family finding themselves suddenly unable to leave their house and forced to survive with what they have, as some unknown threat overtakes the outside world – seemed ripe for a thrilling genre story. Wagner Moura and Greta Lee are two actors I've previously enjoyed, and who could give this idea some real emotional weight. The trailer had done its job, in other words. I was hooked enough to be feeling good about taking this assignment.

My optimism was misplaced. Sometimes, it doesn't take very long to realize a movie has gone disastrously wrong. It could be the awkward rhythm of a few cuts in a row, or the way a line of dialogue thuds against your ear, but you feel right away that everything is somehow out of tune. You could be looking at an actor you've seen on screen plenty of times before, and suddenly you don't buy a single word coming out of their mouth. Everything feels so unnatural that suspending disbelief becomes impossible. All you can do is just hope that the film somehow finds its footing.

For all its production value, The Last House is a mess with very few redeemable qualities. It feels so much like something a person would've dreamed up during the haze of COVID-19 lockdowns and mistaken as profound that I couldn't believe I was watching it in 2026. The only saving grace for those involved is that, like most attempts at pandemic-era commentary, this film is not destined to be remembered long.

The Last House Fumbles Its Promise Every Step Of The Way

The Last House centers on the Delgados, a family of four. Jason (Wagner Moura) is the prickly patriarch, an out-of-work engineer who feels responsible for their financial struggles. The more put-together Ann (Greta Lee) is the family's force of optimism. 12-year-old Graham (Noah Alexander Sosnowski) and eight-year-old Ruth (Riley Chung) are loving but bickering siblings. One day, as an unexpected rainstorm blankets their Seattle neighborhood, they find themselves unable to leave their house – every door and window is inexplicably sealed tight.

Trying to smash them does no good. The rainwater, which moves like it's got a mind of its own, has somehow formed a tight barrier around the structure. There is no getting in or out; not even phone or Wi-Fi signals can penetrate it. Soon, the Delgados realize every neighbor they can see from their windows has the same problem. With no explanation of what's going on, they simply have to hunker down and survive.

At first, that proves a lot of fun – this is some of the best bonding time they've all had in a while. But as days stretch into weeks, and weeks into months, the practical realities of being stuck inside become more problematic. Not to mention that, sometimes, it looks like there's... something out there, moving in the rain.

The premise of The Last House is a compelling one, but Leterrier & Co. totally mishandle it. The film opens with an Arthur C. Clarke quote that I won't replicate here, because it undercuts some of the mystery of what's going on, a decision I truly cannot understand. The script, by Matthew Robinson, elicits many different types of groans. It's overly cheesy at times, awkwardly expository at others. Leterrier's hurried pacing ensures that we never really feel the gravity of the situation they're in, and the bouncing cuts are a constant irritant at best, actually disorienting at worst. Together, these things kill any interest in the bigger picture.

The Last House Has Just One Real Bright Spot

Ann, Jason and Ruth farming in their floorboards in The Last House

The family drama doesn't fare much better. As written, the characters are clumsy sketches, never really believable as human beings. They do and say things that are unnatural, even downright laughable – sometimes transparently catering to an inattentive viewer. Lee and Moura are gifted performers, but you wouldn't know that watching this. They search for some kind of emotional truth in their roles to hold onto and, finding nothing, end up on different planets. That no one is really on the same page is first and foremost a failure of direction.

The only truly grounding force in The Last House is the house itself. This is essentially a single-location film, and the production design team created a tactile, lived-in environment that (d)evolves with time. The Delgados are trapped for a while – long enough for Emma Ho and Gabriel Barbosa to step into the roles of Ruth and Graham, respectively – and the way the space around them transforms is the most significant anchor for our experience of this passage. It's admirable work, worthy of a much better story.

The rest of the film is pretty much incoherent, whether narratively or emotionally. The ultimate reason for the family's confinement is interesting in principle, but a mix of underexplored and nonsensical in practice. The ending is bafflingly insufficient. The only mystery worth pondering once The Last House rolls credits is how all this potential resulted in a sum far lesser than its parts.

The Last House is streaming on Netflix from Friday, August 7.