Inhabitants Review: Dread, Guilt and Ghostly Tensions

Matt McClung’s Inhabitants (2025) arrives as a supernatural horror piece from the director‑writer behind The Mad Whale and Virtual Morality. Anchored by Anna Jacoby‑Heron’s measured turn as Olivia and Josh Andrés Rivera’s increasingly unmoored portrayal of Francis, the film stakes its claim in the genre with a familiar haunted‑house premise dressed in fresh spiritual conflict.

Olivia and Francis leave Nevada for California, determined to build a life together without the formality of marriage. Their decision to cohabit becomes the story’s catalyst: Olivia’s talismans and sage clash with Francis’s ingrained Catholic habits, setting up an undercurrent of tension that extends beyond mere generational disapproval.

McClung paces the narrative deliberately, letting small moments—a flicker of movement at the edge of a frame or a whispered apology in the dark—accumulate into genuine unease. The film doesn’t rush to deliver scares; instead, it layers atmosphere and spiritual symbolism to keep you guessing whether this is a standard ghost story or something more intimately tied to guilt and belief.

Family disapproval shapes the emotional stakes. Francis’s mother, Lillian, dispatches scripture‑laden postcards while Olivia’s own parents remain silent. Nightmares begin to invade Francis’s sleep, and unexplained phenomena—blood‑streaked messages, sudden temperature drops—tease a haunting whose origins linger just out of view, promising that the couple’s new home may hold more than they bargained for.

Narrative Structure & Plot Development

The film opens with a quiet character study, introducing Olivia’s free‑spirited embrace of crystals alongside Francis’s reluctant loyalty to his childhood faith. Their decision to cohabit sets a clear narrative goal. Early family dynamics—Olivia’s silent parents and Lillian’s scripture‑filled postcards—layer emotional stakes before a flicker of danger: Francis’s nightmares and a near‑fatal gas heater mishap hint that this is no ordinary domestic drama.

McClung leverages repetition and variation to build unease. Francis’s sleepwalking scenes arrive at irregular intervals, each more disorienting: a furtive apology (“He sees us…”) here, a whispered confession there. Poltergeist‑style effects—flying objects, ominous writing bleeding across walls—are deployed sparingly, intercut with Olivia’s earnest New Age cleansing and Francis’s mounting plea for a priest. The narrative structure alternates between personal conflict and supernatural set pieces, keeping the central mystery just out of reach.

In the final act, the story pivots with the reveal of Vernon, the youth minister’s restless spirit. The abandoned campground sequence shifts to a more traditional exorcism tableau, yet it feels earned—character arcs converge as Francis confronts his guilt while Olivia puts belief to the test. The aftermath leaves their relationship irrevocably altered, closing on an image that refuses to fully reassure.

Unraveling Faith, Guilt and Home

Matt McClung stages a tug‑of‑war between belief systems from the moment Olivia waves sage through a silent hallway and Francis fingers his rosary in the shadows. Olivia’s crystals serve as tangible signposts for her trust in energy and intention, while Francis’s Catholic habits—cross around the neck, whispered prayers—anchor him to a doctrine that he’s both forsaken and feared.

These rituals aren’t window dressing; they reveal how each character locates control in the unseen. When sage fails to clear a room of blood‑soaked writing, and a crucifix trembles in someone’s hand, the film asks: which faith, if any, has real power?

Guilt underpins the haunting more than any specter. The young couple’s choice to cohabit springs from lived conviction, but Francis carries a secret sin far older and darker. The home’s walls become a ledger of unatoned acts—every scratch on wood, every piece of flying furniture tallying a past he can’t outrun. The haunted house trope here doubles as psychological cabinet: hidden memories swirl with the wind, accusations scrawled in crimson. It’s a reminder that redemption often demands confession, not just congregational ritual.

Family operates as both judge and potential salvation. Olivia’s parents withdraw entirely, leaving her adrift; Francis’s mother Lillian initially dispatches scriptures like punitive postcards. Yet when Lillian pivots—somewhat abruptly—to stand alongside her son and Olivia, it isn’t mere convenience. It reflects a recurring trend in modern horror: fractured families thrown back together by shared trauma. Still, the speed of her transformation hints at a screenplay scrambling to reconcile thematic ambitions.

Finally, the couple’s California house morphs from sanctuary into prison. Wide‑angle shots of sunlit exteriors contrast sharply with claustrophobic corridors where shadows gather. In the finale’s abandoned campground, isolation reaches its apogee. Whether hemmed in by judgmental relatives or circling spirits, the characters find that “home” is less about geography and more about the ghosts we carry.

Characters & Performances

At the core of Inhabitants are three emotional fulcrums: Olivia, Francis and Lillian. Anna Jacoby‑Heron’s Olivia begins the film buoyant and self‑assured—trent in crystals, sage and a firm belief in her own agency. By Act II, her convictions are tested when ritual after ritual fails to staunch the bleeding messages on her walls.

The pivot arrives in her purification sequence: Jacoby‑Heron blends steely resolve with mounting panic, transforming Olivia from serene believer into fierce protector. Her confrontation with Lillian crackles, revealing the tension between hope and desperation; in the finale, she becomes more than a guide for Francis—she’s the one who must stand and fight.

Josh Andrés Rivera’s Francis is no one‑note skeptic. He opens the story as the more restrained of the two, content in his half‑abandoned Catholicism. Rivera uses small physical tics—shaky hands, ragged breathing—to chart Francis’s descent. His night terrors and sleepwalking scenes land with unsettling authenticity, his body betraying a man at war with hidden guilt. When Francis finally turns to his mother for absolution, Rivera’s posture straightens almost defiantly, as if reclaiming a lost identity.

Ana Auther’s Lillian earns each tonal shift. Introduced as an icy antagonist, she dispatches rosaries like ordnance. But when the plot demands an ally, Auther threads vulnerability through her performance: a flicker of remembered love beneath the sermonizing. It’s a rapid arc, and while the screenplay sometimes rushes her evolution, Auther’s grounded presence keeps Lillian credible.

Kevin Nealon’s Denny offers light relief—his deadpan delivery undercuts the horror without derailing it. Todd Robert Anderson’s Vernon is a ghost made flesh through whispered taunts and sudden apparitions, his menace felt more than seen.

Most crucial is the Olivia‑Francis chemistry. Their easy rapport in daylight makes every breakdown and accusation in the dark more heartbreaking. Group scenes—family confrontations, makeshift exorcisms—thrum with genuine friction. Through this ensemble, Inhabitants reminds us that effective horror often springs from fractured relationships as much as spectral threats.

Direction, Cinematography & Visual Style

Matt McClung stages Inhabitants with deliberate pacing, holding tension in long, silent beats before unleashing sudden bursts of violence. Early scenes linger on ordinary moments—Olivia arranging crystals, Francis pacing a dim hallway—only to punctuate them with a jolt: a heater explosion or a door slamming itself shut. This rhythm of slow creep followed by stark shock underscores McClung’s intent to balance quiet character work with moments of pure horror.

Pearce Healey’s lens thrives in low light. Shadows swallow corners of the house, and fogged windows blur the boundary between inside and out. Lingering wide shots establish the couple’s isolation, then give way to creeping dollies that close in on a sweaty brow or trembling hand. When jump scares arrive, the camera switches to handheld, thrusting the audience into Francis’s disorientation.

Production design tightens the screws. The living room feels cozy until you notice how every corner holds a crucifix or a cluster of quartz—symbols of conflicting faiths pressed into close quarters. Walls narrow as corridors wind toward hidden rooms, creating a maze of psychological entrapment. In contrast, the abandoned campground sequence opens into wide fields, the expanse providing a hollow freedom that only amplifies the characters’ vulnerability.

Effects lean on practical craftsmanship. Objects fling themselves across rooms with a tangible weight that CGI often misses. Blood writing on plastered walls looks freshly scrawled, its texture catching light in ways digital overlays rarely replicate. Subtle spectral overlays—the faint outline of a figure in a doorway—appear in reflection, never fully formed, maintaining an eerie ambiguity that keeps you guessing who is watching.

Audio Atmosphere & Score

The film’s score opts for restraint over grandiosity. Sparse piano motifs thread through early scenes, each note lingering like a question left unanswered. Alongside these quiet touches, low-frequency drones swell beneath conversations, hinting at unseen forces. Then, at key moments—Francis’s nightmare awakenings, Olivia’s ritual preparations—a sudden crescendo jolts the audience, as if the music itself were exhaling a held breath. These thematic phrases underscore the tug‑of‑war between Olivia’s hopeful energy work and Francis’s battered faith.

Sound effects serve as another layer of storytelling. The house itself feels alive: floorboards groan under unseen weight, vents whisper cold air into empty rooms, and curtains rustle without breeze. Such ambient details fill every quiet pause, turning silence into a participant rather than mere absence. In the moments before a scare, total hush reigns—an invitation to lean in, only to be met with a spine‑tingling crack or distant murmur.

In the mix, dialogue remains clear even amid chaos. You won’t miss Olivia’s whispered pleas or Francis’s frantic gasps. During the climax, chants, screams and overlapping voices build a textured storm, each element placed so that no scream drowns out the other. The result is an audio landscape that pulls you deeper into the couple’s unraveling, making every echo and thump feel personal.

Final Assessment & Recommendation

Inhabitants excels at conjuring a pervasive sense of dread. Moments of hushed stillness give way to genuinely jarring shocks, and McClung’s commitment to practical effects grounds the supernatural in tactile reality. Jacoby‑Heron and Rivera deliver performances that evolve alongside their characters’ unraveling psyches, making each scratch on the wall feel intimately tied to buried guilt. Lillian’s sudden shift into crusader‑mode can feel abrupt—script pacing occasionally stumbles when juggling spiritual themes—but Auther’s warmth smooths the transition.

Storytelling-wise, the film adheres to familiar beats yet spices them with a sincere exploration of faith and personal responsibility. In an era where horror often leans on franchise entries or found‑footage conceits, this slow‑burn approach recalls the tension‑building virtues of earlier ghost tales while nodding to modern interest in religious trauma.

Viewers who appreciate faith‑based horror with deliberate pacing will find plenty to admire. If jump scares and shadow play rank high on your list, Inhabitants delivers. Those seeking narrative innovation may bristle at occasional script shortcuts. With that in mind, consider this a qualified recommendation: a well‑crafted haunted‑house story that thrives on atmosphere and strong central performances, even if it doesn’t fully reinvent the genre.

Full Credits

Director: Matt McClung

Writer: Matt McClung

Producer: Thomas Rennier

Cast: Anna Jacoby-Heron, Josh Rivera, Ana Auther, Kevin Nealon

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Pearce Healey