Warning: Spoilers Ahead for There’s Someone Inside Your House
The identity of the killer is the central mystery of Netflix’s latest slasher, There’s Someone Inside Your House. Based on the eponymous 2017 novel by Stephanie Perkins, There’s Someone Inside Your House centers on a string of gruesome teen murders that take place in the town of Osborne, Nebraska. As the body count rises, the identity of the killer and the motivations that drive them becomes part of the overarching suspense, with transfer student Makani Young (Sydney Park) at the nexus of the story.
After Makani narrowly escapes being burned alive by the killer, her love interest Ollie is arrested as everyone suspects him. However, on the day of the Corn Maze Festival, Makani sees the masked killer stabbing her friend Caleb, while a now-released Ollie catching up with her out of concern. As this establishes Ollie couldn’t have been the killer, Makani heads to the corn maze as she tries to deduce where the killer will strike next. Makani and Ollie later witness the mystery slasher drive a longsword into Mr. Sandford, Zach’s father. Then, the killer unmasks themselves and is revealed to be no one other than Zach, who openly abhorred his father’s legacy right.
Keeping this reveal in mind, if one traces back Zach’s motivations and whereabouts during the murders, it makes sense why he would take it upon himself to carry out a Saw-style twisted sense of retribution. The first victims – a popular football jock exposed as a vicious bully and a seemingly devout girl harboring white supremacist ideologies – were chosen by Zach as he meant to expose the “masks” they wore in society. Choosing to print out masks of his intended victims, Zach chose those with heinous secrets, exposing the gap between appearance and reality, and the hypocrisy of their double lives. However, his own hypocrisy shines brightest, as evidenced by his confession that being born privileged was no fault of his own and that he refuses to feel ashamed due to the wealth handed to him in Someone’s Inside Your House’s killer ending.
The brutal killing of Rodrigo (Diego Josef) is perhaps the most definitive aspect of Zach’s cruelty, as the former was killed simply due to the fact he had a drug dependency as a means to cope with depressive thoughts. It’s important to note Rodrigo was killed during Zach’s party, whose obvious absence when the lights go off and elaborate speech about standing up to corruption right before are subtle hints to the truth. Moreover, only an influential individual like Zach, owing to his father’s wealth, could have access to the technology required to run extensive background checks or print out 3D masks, somewhat reminiscent of the iconic Ghostface mask in Scream.
Moreover, Zach’s hatred for his father is paramount, right from his declaration that his father could be the killer to displaying the wide range of Nazi memorabilia he had turned into bongs and pipes. As the killer’s psychology hinged on symbolism, such as hanging the second victim inside a church or attempting to burn Makani due to the nature of her past, Zach emerges as a prime candidate early on. Be it when he whips out a fake gun at the party that’s “loaded with meaning”, or a symbolic joint after Makani gains consciousness at the hospital, it becomes clear Zach’s mind works in a specific way, wherein he associates his actions with metaphors that makes sense to him. While the identity of the killer is somewhat foreseeable in There’s Someone Inside Your House, their motivations lack depth and meaning when weighed against the extremity of the gory crimes committed.
