House of Ashes

Mia Sheldon (Fayna Sanchez) is dealing with the trauma of a miscarriage and the death of her husband Adam. While she was acquitted of his murder (he committed suicide) there’s precious little sympathy for her. The town has passed a law that found her guilty of miscarriage and must serve a year under house arrest, with an ankle bracelet.

With her family disowning her she’s relying on Marc (Vincent Stalba), an old flame who still holds a torch for her, for practical matters – shopping etc – and mental support. He is however soon making demands and starts to annoy Mia. His behaviour becomes possessive and downright creepy.

To add to this Mia says she can feel Adam’s presence, which isn’t totally absurd as his ashes are in the house, along with many other personal items. Marc in the meantime begins to ratchet up his own agenda increasing the pressure on Mia.
Directed by Izzy Lee, cowritten with Steve Johanson its fairly clear what the overriding political and social themes of the film are. The hub is the overturning of Row v Wade in 2022, however there’s also the continuing discourse about women’s rights, with the growing feeling in some circles that maybe things need to take a step back and look at what are the priorities for women regarding work and domestic issues.

The story is for the most part confined to the house as Mia is held captive. But glances outside show that Mia is almost a sideshow with a podcaster Lexi ShokToks (Laura Dromerick) looking for access for her shows though falling foul of Marc.

Stepping away from the politics there’s a good ghost story here as the film progresses with Lee threading in the backstory. The characters are sketchy which doesn’t affect that overall story. Much of this is works on an emotive level and that is 100% with Mia.

House of Ashes had its International Premiere at Glasgow FrightFest 2025.