PLOT SUMMARY: When Theo and Susanna take their daughter Ella to a vacation home, little do they realize the house's terrifying secret.
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, thought about a random event in the past and thought, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
It could be as simple as saying no to a glass of water from someone who was being polite, or it could be saying something mean you said to someone without realizing it would be hurtful at that time.
That’s the thing with guilt. It pounces on you at the worst moment and keeps building a cage around you.
If not dealt with, it could lead to some serious consequences, especially if the incident is serious.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT Movie Plot
The movie begins with a little girl waking up to find an older man in a cap sitting on her bed. He calls her by her name Ella and she asks how he knows her name.
Her name is written over her bed in big letters, and the intruder didn’t need to do much detecting to find out her name. But she’s six years old, so it’s okay.
He says something scary and Ella wakes up. She gets out of bed when the intruder returns and holds her up by her neck, strangulating her while telling her this has to do with her daddy.
In the next scene, a man wakes up. It was his dream all along. He dreamt his daughter had a dream and woke up and then was strangled.
His name is Theo and there is a visible age gap between him and his wife Susanna who is younger and beautiful. She’s also an actress who is made to film sensual scenes much to the discomfort of her husband who is made to stand outside and wait as the crew doesn’t care much for family members visiting the set.
However the minute he mentions his name, the crew member gives him an odd look and Theo realizes he must be recognized.
Susanna cheers him up with ya only way she can and in a car in the middle of nowhere.
They make plans to get out of the limelight before Susanna has to resume shooting in London.
They find a house online in Wales that is pretty much black and doesn’t look very cozy.
But it is bigger inside than what it looks from the outside.
The family settles in and when night comes, Theo tells Susanna about the new season he had downloaded and then goes off to turn the lights around the house.
There are hundreds of light switches all around the house and none of them switches off an annoying lamp in the corner.
Meanwhile, Susanna is in her bed, ready to watch the show. The time shows 10:34 pm.
Theo finds a secret door with more lights and switches and tries to off them all. But as he leaves, the light comes on again.
The electricity bill is bound to be huge.
He goes to his room and finds Susanna asleep. He wakes her up because he wants to have a little fun. She doesn’t care anymore and wants to sleep. Before she does, she asks what took him so long.
Theo doesn’t look at the time before he settles in because if he had, he would have noticed the time was 3 am.
So instead of looking for her husband who was taking too much time, Susanna decided to go to sleep.
The next morning he wakes up late and finds a note from his wife and daughter that they’ve gone for a walk.
Theo listens to his therapy recordings but is bugged by them.
He’s also bored with writing in his journal and walks off in a huff to get some grocery shopping done.
The man at the grocery store takes an excruciatingly long time to get his grocery box ready and makes an odd comment about the house and Stetler to whom the house supposedly belongs.
Outside, a woman is standing near his car making the same comment about Stetler to which Theo mutters, enough with the Stetler.
Meanwhile, Ella corners Susanna into revealing why everyone hates her dad. Susanna hesitates but when he daughter slips off a tree, she tells her about how her father was caught by the police because his first wife had taken some drugs and fallen asleep in the bathtub and drowned. He escaped punishment but the people still believed he had something to do with her death.
When Theo returns, Ella tells him how sorry she is that he had to go through all this.
Theo is mad at Susanna for telling their daughter the truth because he had wanted to. Susanna keeps telling him she was cornered, but Theo is a jerk to her.
They get into a fight with Theo admitting he feels Susanna is hiding something from him.
Ella is sympathetic to him over dinner, realizing her mother is mad at her father.
While Susanna is taking her bath, Theo checks her phone, convinced she’s having an affair as she’s always on the phone.
He doesn’t find anything but still goes ahead and checks her laptop as well.
Eventually, he makes up with her.
That night Theo wakes up. Susanna does as well but goes back to sleep. Theo decides to roam around the house to try and calm himself. He finds doors that leads to a maze of more doors.
Eventually, he comes upon a dark room and finds a pair of girl’s legs. He freaks out when he finds Ella, apparently dead by drowning as she spurts out water.
Theo prays he’s dreaming and finds a bottle to cut his wrist then his neck.
He wakes up, unscathed. It was a dream. He confides in Susanna and she doesn’t remember waking up in the middle of the night and informs him that she would have woken up if he was roaming around the house as he was noisy. She didn’t hear him the night before and preferred dozing off to finding where her husband went for so long.
The door that led to the blackened room has also disappeared. He takes Susanna to the room where he writes in his journal, and someone had scribbled with a pencil to Go, leave right now.
He thinks Ella scribbled on his book. They talk about having bad dreams and not liking the house. Both of them have no idea who sent the link to the house to whom.
Clearly, they have a communication gap, or else why didn’t they discuss renting a black house in the middle of nowhere?
They decide to leave and pack their bags. While Theo is packing the last of his stuff, Susanna and Ella decide to go out and run around for a bit.
Theo smiles and texts Susanna that they are cute rather than going out and saying the same.
It is the digital age after all, and all communications are done via texts and emails.
A phone buzzes and Theo gets curious because Susanna appears to be checking her phone. But that isn’t possible because her phone is right on the counter.
Theo realizes his fears have come true. Susanna has been cheating on him. He goes out and confronts her bus simply stating she has two phones and the name of the man who it could be.
Susanna wants to have a fight but Theo doesn’t feel like indulging in drama. He tells her to take their car, and their only way out of there, with her.
She leaves and hopes to come the next day.
Ella is her annoying self and breaks a glass. The water puddles in a weird way and Theo uses the right angle scale the grocer has given to him as a guest. The angles don’t add up.
He tells Ella to be more productive and takes her outside to hold the measuring tape. She complies and Theo finds the house is actually bigger from the inside.
Ella goes to get her jacket but gets lost.
The doors open to a maze where she keeps getting lost until she arrives at a black hall and pulled inside one of the doors.
Theo finally makes it to her after opening and closing a lot of doors and wonders if he’s in a multiverse.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT Ending Explained with spoilers!
He finds the old man from his dream and realizes it is him confronting him about killing his wife. He claims he was just tired of being married to her and watched her die.
The old man is a manifestation of his guilt and warns him that his daughter will do anything for him, even live with him forever and be punished for his crimes. In this sense, it means the house will never let him or his daughter go.
Theo decides to run away, carrying his daughter with him because a call to the grocer only ends in a taunt about admitting to his sins and whatnot. They see a shadow in the hall and hope they don’t ever have to come back again.
They run all the way down only to end up back at the house.
Theo realizes he cannot escape his guilt. He’s tried so hard but built himself a prison he cannot escape.
He enters more doors and finds himself in past events. He finds himself writing in a journal and writes down to leave. Of course, he had enough time to write the whole thing, but he chooses to scribble something vague and hopes his other self recognizes his own handwriting at least.
It’s the next day and Susanna arrives. He apologizes to her and tells her he doesn’t want to make things work. She was borrowed, he says. He couldn’t have her. Then he tells her what he did, and Susanna doesn’t press to make things work.
She drives away as fast as she can from the murderer.
Theo gives himself up to the house.
In the last scene, the house is available for rent again in case anyone else has committed crimes and feel guilty about it.
The story had plenty of plot holes and it was sad to see the actors given such a mediocre script to work with.
Scare scale: 2/5
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