"The Last House" proves that Netflix loves to trap its characters The sci-fi thriller starring Wagner Moura and Greta Lee is available on the platform from August 7

Netflix has an obvious fetish for trapping its characters inside apartments they can no longer leave. The Last House is the latest example. The first film of this kind on the platform to achieve widespread success was the German Brick in the summer of 2025, a work by Philip Koch that quickly reached the top spot among the most-watched films on the streaming service and stayed there for quite some time. The story of a couple in crisis who one day find themselves prisoners in their own home, sealed in by a strange black substance. Shortly after came The Great Flood, released in September of the same year, a Korean film directed by Kim Byung-woo about a mother and her child who, in order to survive a flood, are forced to climb every floor of a tall building.

In this summer of 2026, crushed by heat waves and a sun that burns the skin, Louis Leterrier's film cools us down with a relentless, unusual rain that forces people to stay in their homes. And not in the sense that they simply don't want to go out to avoid getting wet or catching a cold, but that they are physically prevented from leaving the perimeter of their own home, held back by an unknown and ungovernable force. Yet another film, then, in which characters find themselves having to come to terms with their unusual predicament — one that the family led by Wagner Moura and Greta Lee takes surprisingly well. Much like when, during Covid, people started baking bread and working out, finding the bright side in a forced lockdown.

A Two-Pronged Plot

The Last House effectively develops along two lines. One concerns the fighting spirit of the Delgado family and their absolute adaptability. The other is the mystery lurking outside their front door, shrouded in the thick, relentless rain that soaks the ground and prevents anyone from going out. So the first part of the film is entirely about trying to adjust to the circumstances — and about making those on the other side of the screen regret never having taken a survival course, or having left the Scouts too early, before acquiring the knowledge needed to hold out without gas, without electricity, and eventually without water or food either.

Obviously, behind the nest built by Moura and Lee lies an entire world the film wants to talk to us about. There is the question of how to keep a family united, of how the instinct to protect is what keeps us alive, and of how far a parent would go to keep anything from happening to their children. There is even a positive side to this disconnection from the outside world — a return to basics where nothing is needed beyond being together, having fun, finding things to do, listening to one another, and dancing to feel good. There is also a gentle but pointed critique of the male figure as protector and guardian of the entire clan, who must learn that children are meant to grow up and that wives can manage on their own too — even if it means venturing into cramped basements in search of a way out.

The truth, however, is that The Last House tries to convey all these positive notes while showing us a family with abilities far superior to those of most people you'd encounter in everyday life. It fills you with anxiety because it makes you think that, faced with some adverse force keeping you locked inside your home, you wouldn't have nearly enough supplies and your weekly shop wouldn't even last a week. It puts your entire life into perspective, making you wonder whether maybe your parents were right when they said engineering was the smart choice at university, or that it would at least make sense to have someone around with a bit of that knowledge — even at a rudimentary level.

A Sci-Fi That Doesn't Work at All

Just as you finish reflecting on how long we ordinary mortals would last in a situation like the one in The Last House, it is the second half that both the protagonists and the audience must contend with. Weighed down by an excessive running time that burdens the entire viewing experience and leaves both the characters and — above all — the audience drained, we watch the supernatural threads of the story get tied up, forced to make peace with it all even when nothing seems to make much sense.

Now, we won't sit in judgment over whether or not it's rational for rain to trap you indoors, or for creatures to inhabit it. But it is equally clear that The Last House has a strong premise that leads to a limp and faltering execution. A ship (or rather, a house) that leaks from every seam, leaving you to reach the end of the film feeling as though you had genuinely lived through all those years alongside the characters inside their home. Which is not a good thing, because you don't feel like part of their family — you simply have the sensation that the film has gone on forever and, just like the characters, you can't wait to finally step outside and see the sunlight again. A sci-fi film that doesn't work at all, but one that might teach us that perhaps the time has come to learn how to grow our own vegetable garden.