America under the kind of very real draconian laws that would see a woman prosecuted for having a miscarriage doesn’t need an additional supernatural aspect to be terrifying. All over the country, the loss of rights for women in particular has resulted in outcomes that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror movie. In Izzy Lee’s feature debut House of Ashes, she piles misery upon tragedy upon various flavours of oppression to create one of the most timely, disturbingly prescient, and deeply affecting horror films I’ve seen in some time.
House of Ashes tells the tale of Mia (Fayna Sanchez), who has been confined to her home with an ankle bracelet and a hardass of a probation officer. Her “crime” is having a miscarriage which has recently become a criminal act in her state. Mia is one of the first to be convicted under this law and her case widely covered in the media. This is only the first and most chillingly realistic of the oppressive, disturbing events to befall Mia and send her spiraling.
Mia’s miscarriage is brought on by the death of her husband Adam (Mason Conrad) in an apparent suicide, a syringe buried in his neck at the veterinary clinic that the couple run. Mia’s high school boyfriend Marc (Vincent Stalba) shows up to help Mia through all of this and is in the middle of moving into her home to comfort her through her grief over these two crushing losses. Marc is doting and patient, but his kid-gloves treatment of Mia starts to wear thin with her. It’s also not immediately clear what the nature of their relationship actually is, in terms of romantic feelings. Among the multiple layers of trauma heaped on Mia, there’s a palpable loneliness as the walls of her home seem to close in, even with Marc there to support her.
Voices and hallucinations begin to haunt Mia as she’s bottled up in the home she once shared with her husband. Her sleep is interrupted by visions of Adam and the baby she might have shared with him. These nightmares increasingly bleed into her waking reality, made worse by her probation officer (Lee Boxleitner in one of the most punchable-faced villain roles I’ve seen this year) who shows up unannounced when Mia forgets to charge the ankle bracelet that keeps her confined. He smugly and then aggressively proclaims Mia to be a murderer for the loss of her pregnancy and for indirectly causing Adam’s death, letting her know that there will be even worse consequences for violating her restrictive confinement. As if that’s not enough, a podcaster/influencer named Lexi Shoktocks is doggedly and persistently pursuing Mia for what would assuredly be a clickbait piece. Still worse, Marc begins to pressure Mia into consuming cannabis edibles and alcohol, both of which would violate her probation.
Bolstered by terrific performances from Sanchez and Stalba, House of Ashes is a compelling treatise on bodily autonomy and grief while delivering some disturbing imagery that may be natural, supernatural, or some combination of the two. Sophia Cacciola’s cinematography emphasizes the claustrophobic nature of Mia’s plight, using tight close-ups to drive home how trapped she feels, both in her home and under the oppressive weight of her state’s regressive laws. A score by Antoine Lamothe of the band Deadly Apples raises the tension levels even further, if that’s possible.
Izzy Lee has long been a favourite filmmaker of mine, and I feel a certain elation at seeing her move from a resume of excellent and award-winning short horror films like 2019’s Re-Home and 2022’s Meat Friend to her first feature with House of Ashes. There’s no shortage of modern horrors that explore the themes of grief and the incredible weight of mourning a lost loved one, but Lee sets House of Ashes apart with the kind of story that meters out the horror over a longer runtime than a short film would allow. Lee’s ability to imbue her stories with a political undertone (or overtone) that feels essential and of the moment without feeling like a lecture is very much developed with House of Ashes as well. Her short film roots are also clear as House of Ashes has an economical lack of wasted motion or film to support Ashes’ deliberate pace. Unsettling and mind-melting while using Mia’s story to amplify the terror that women across America are subject to under this current administration, House of Ashes is the sort of filmmaking that we need more of, for all our sakes.
House of Ashes comes to VOD on October 30, 2025 from director Izzy Lee, Nihil Noctem Films, and INSVRGENCE Films
