This article is for people who have watched this film, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Yellow Wallpaper.
In a marriage, only women have the right to make decisions about pregnancy.
Juan Sebastian Baron/via The House on Pine Street – Wikipedia
The House is Humanized, not Haunted
No people live inside a house, be it cursed or blessed, it’s no better than a barren land.
We know Jennifer (Emily Goss) is heavily pregnant and reluctant to live in Kansas, her birthplace where she is under her mother’s suffocating control, and she also has to leave her best friend in Chicago where she has already found her belongings.
As the first paranormal thing happens (the lid of a cooking pot moves twice from where she puts it), I have a peculiar feeling that the house itself senses Jennifer‘s adversity of never being willing to accept it. Thus, it hinted to her that if she resented living here, she should leave.
In another scene the house pretends to be Jennifer’s husband, it massages her body and tries to touch her belly, but its attempt to establish some connection with Jennifer gets rejected rudely.
Jennifer‘s feelings towards the house are not just of detestation but also of terror. The more she directs blame and resentment at the house, the more it protests with malevolent energy, manifesting through slamming doors, shifting furniture, producing strange noises, and casting ominous shadows in the ceiling corners.
(I get it, some love is so hard to let go of that I rather damage it.)
When Jennifer realizes Walter is adept at offering any help, her words, ‘Get out!’ seem to have a subliminal strike toward Walter, as the whole house echos to her hellish loose, and that’s the first time another person except Jennifer witnesses a superstitious scene in the house.
I guess Jennifer already has no love for her husband and unconsciously wants to end this marriage. She may not want her husband to die, but she knows deeply her life will be better without this coward. The house picks up on her disdain, and it might also feel disgusted by such a pretentious selfish person.
Thus, it killed him to do Jennifer and me a favor.
Compared to Rosemary’s Baby (or The Yellow Wallpaper)
The director, Aaron Keeling, and Austin Keeling said this film was inspired by Rosemary’s Baby. The manifestation of horror inside a haunted house brings us a nostalgic connection. The ignorant, arrogant, and macho husband who always brushes off his pregnant wife’s concerns via sweet-talking makes his fulfillment the priority in this family.
Jennifer confronts Luke (Taylor Bottles) that she would’ve believed him if he said the house was haunted, so why couldn’t he do the same and trust her? Obviously, Luke never treats Jennifer as an equal partner in this marriage. For him, she might be only a vessel for carrying a baby.
As in Rosemary’s Baby, even her friends can tell she is in a terrible health condition. He also controls her freedom to find a different doctor and forbids her to read a book. He is oblivious to anything unusual, always interrupts her talk (like Luke to Jennifer), and pretends what he does is for her good.
In the classic short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the husband treats his wife as a patient, and he is a superior doctor in deciding where she should live to rest and what she should do. We see one husband take away his wife’s book, and in The Yellow Wallpaper, the other husband takes away his wife’s pen, even knowing she is fond of writing.
The death in The House on Pine Street is the final marvelous and cheerable touch. He not only doesn’t care about Jennifer but also intentionally does not confirm that Jennifer has been telling the truth that the furniture moving by itself. He only thinks about his promotion at work and all the new friends he makes, putting his pregnant wife in misery.
The female character faces remorse ending in The Yellow Wallpaper or Rosemary’s Baby. But in The House on Pine Street, Jennifer regains her rights to start a new life and drives to the city she always wanted to go to. I guess she is wearing the brightest smile while looking out the window in the entire film.
I love that the film doesn’t even care to shoot Luke‘s funeral, and I wish he just rots on the lawn.
