correction
An earlier version of this story misidentified the actor who plays an eccentric millionaire in “Private Property.” It is Logan Miller, not Frank Whaley. This version has been corrected.
Christina Ricci stars in “Monstrous,” a horror film that morphs from haunted-house thriller to creature feature to something else entirely — and something far more interesting. As Ricci’s Laura arrives in rural California from Arizona with her son Cody (Santino Barnard), apparently fleeing an abusive ex-husband, the house seems to be haunted, albeit in a fairly conventional way: flickering lights and other electrical disturbances, a dripping faucet, unexplained rips in the upholstery, and Cody talking about the “pretty lady from the pond” only he can see. Set in the 1950s (at least by appearances), and filmed with the kind of cheesy creature effects that Laura watches on her black-and-white TV, “Monstrous” plays with cliche and distorted perception, doing a lot with a little. It’s got a twist, as you might expect, and it’s not a bad one, turning something off-puttingly conventional into, well, a nicely resonant surprise. PG-13. Available on demand. Contains terror, mature thematic elements and brief violence. 89 minutes.
