By that point, Soderbergh has already, cannily and uncannily, established the premise of the title: the house isn’t actually empty, and the family won’t be there alone. The director conjures the house’s spectral presence by means of an unusual cinematic device that dominates the movie from start to finish: the camera embodies the perspective of that invisible character. At the very beginning of the film, the house is introduced in a single shot that peers through windows, roves from room to room, and heads downstairs. Then the scene of the sale is presented in a gliding, gyrating take that, again, ranges widely through the house; as the negotiation takes place, the camera follows the daughter upstairs and into a bedroom, where she turns and looks at the camera as if aware of being followed.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter