Review: 'You Should Have Left' Offers Little Reason to Stay

Screenwriter David Koepp ("Jurassic Park") teams up once again with actor Kevin Bacon (the two previously made "Stir of Echoes") to bring us another unhinged take at toxic masculinity – or is it?

Based on the novel by Daniel Kehlman, "You Should Have Left" is a small horror thriller that co-stars Amanda Seyfried as Susanna, a successful actress who, along with her older husband Theo (Bacon) and 6-year-old daughter Ella (Avery Tiiu Essex), rents a gorgeous house in the Welsh countryside before she takes off for a film shoot.

While Susanna is famous, so is her husband – but for very different reasons. Theo was a successful finance guy who suffered a tragedy that ruined his reputation. As a result, Theo has numerous personal issues and is constantly listening to meditation recordings and writing aggressively in a journal.

When the three get to the massive, modern-style house, they are initially enraptured by its many halls and idiosyncrasies. But soon enough they all keep having nightmares, Ella sees shadows in her room, and Theo keeps noticing odd things about the home's architecture.

Meanwhile, Theo and Susanna's relationship is strained by a number of secrets they both keep hiding from each other - secrets that may or may not be awakening a presence deep in the bowels of the house.

"You Should Have Left" has some terrific visual tricks up its sleeve, and the house itself becomes an unnerving character of its own. But the film falls short in both intrigue and scares. While the relationship between Theo and Susanna is well-played and the two actors interact well with Essex, the story meanders through its visual flourishes and endless nightmare sequences, never leading us anywhere but to more false doors and hallways. There isn't much of a driving force to the story, so halfway through you're still not sure where the story is going to take you.

Oddly enough, even though it's unclear what the film is trying to do, there is a bunch of plot turns that are projected from the start and end up being less than surprising. When it's all over you're not too sure what the house's machinations were ultimately supposed to be about, and whether or not the story by the weird shop-owner in the village about the house's history is real or not.

"You Should Have Left" is intriguing and looks terrific, and the three actors do great by their characters, but ultimately it doesn't offer much of a reason to stay.