‘House of Ashes’ Review: Izzy Lee’s Feature Film Debut Is Dazzling and Heartbreaking [Panic Fest 2025]
Writer, director, and overall horror maven Izzy Lee has been working in the genre for over a decade, creating uniquely beautiful and disgusting work in her short films like Meat Friend, Innsmouth, and Re-Home. Now, she’s finally made her debut feature film with House of Ashes, a devastating haunted house film with a few gnarly twists stuffed up its well-lit sleeves. Between stylish lighting and a film that operates on dream-like logic, Lee crafts a suburban supernatural giallo, a gorgeous fever dream about a woman constantly fighting for control of her mind, body, and soul.
After the death of her husband, Mia (Fayna Sanchez) is sentenced to a year of house arrest, but not for his murder. No, she’s been given this sentence after having a miscarriage in a state where archaic laws interpret miscarriage as murder. So, while grieving the love of her life and their child, she settles into house arrest with her new boyfriend Marc (Vincent Stalba) by her side.
At first, he seems supportive through her grief (though it does all feel a little fast) as he fills the pantry and offers a shoulder to cry on. But as the days pass, his tolerance quickly wears away and his good guy facade along with it. On top of bickering with her boyfriend, Mia starts seeing and hearing things around the house that make her think it may be haunted. As the nightmarish images build and the tension between the two lovers grows, House of Ashes becomes a supernatural powder keg of secrets, resentment, and blood.
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Information is delivered through news broadcasts, a few flashbacks, and whispering neighbors, dropping a few breadcrumbs, but not too many as to not overexplain Mia’s trauma. In turn, Lee turns Mia’s home into a liminal space, a purgatory where she floats through each day, her slowly cracking mental space reflected with blue, purple, and red lighting reminiscent of giallo films from the 1970s. Increasingly disturbing images only add to that vibe as Lee makes it difficult to discern between reality and terrifying visions. It’s a sensory experience that mirrors Mia’s own oppression, pressing in and squeezing tight, barely allowing you to breathe.
But this is also the film’s biggest stumbling block. The script needs to spend a bit more time setting the stage, particularly when it comes to Mia and Marc’s relationship. Lee wants the viewer to pick up the threads she leaves dangling along the way, but some threads are harder to grasp than others. The performances and emotional weight of the words are there, it’s just hard to fully invest when you aren’t totally sure of the nature of the relationships on screen. While this does add to the dream logic vibes and the giallo-like feeling of the script, the lack of detail keeps the film from fully connecting.
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Sanchez and Stalba carry House of Ashes on their backs with ease, packing emotional punch after emotional punch with each argument or mental breakdown. There’s never a down moment in the film, so both actors are always at an emotional 10. It’s a difficult thing to maintain for an entire feature, but they manage to pull it off beautifully, especially Sanchez as Mia. She brings the character a crucial complexity; she’s traumatized and feels broken, and she lashes out sometimes. But she’s also powerful and full of love, which should never be underestimated.
As previously mentioned, Lee and her team create disturbing imagery that lingers, especially when that imagery involves seeing needles and cremated remains. This is a low-budget indie horror film, which means resources are limited for crafting gore and shocking sequences. But Lee and team rose to the challenge, using creativity and a less-is-more mentality to deliver scenes that break taboos and have you involuntarily wince in pain.
By making a micro budget horror on her own terms, Izzy Lee made her feature film dream come true. Now it’s time she gets to keep that dream moving with the support of the horror community (and the horror powers that be with the financial means) behind her. With a single location and a limited cast, Lee tells a terrifying story about modern gaslighting and the oppressive experience of having your body shoved under a microscope by the patriarchy. House of Ashes is smart, freaky, and gorgeous, proof that Lee is only just getting started.
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House of Ashes
Summary
House of Ashes is smart, freaky, and gorgeous, and further proof that Izzy Lee is only just getting started.
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