A sultry new live-in housekeeper faces harsh treatment from the emotionally unstable wife and mother of the family—but compassion from her husband—in The Housemaid, a sexy, bloody new thriller opening in Prague cinemas this weekend after debuting in the States over Christmas. This elevated Lifetime movie recalls classic erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle—and does a far better job of modernizing the genre than the latter’s remake, also released in 2025—and plays like gangbusters thanks to a pair of engagingly campy performances from Sydney Sweeney and (especially) Amanda Seyfried.
Still, a prolonged exposition dump right when things start to really heat up almost completely derails the movie right when it should be delivering at full capacity. Nearly half an hour of rote backstory, painstakingly narrated by multiple characters, fills us in on exactly what’s going on here at the 75-minute mark, forcing a rushed conclusion that nevertheless extends the running time to a patience-testing 131 minutes.
Adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from the novel by Freida McFadden, The Housemaid stars Sweeney as Millie Calloway, a struggling young woman living out of her car and desperately seeking employment. The reasons behind her current situation are expectedly woven into the film’s climactic reveal—but there’s more to the narrative than we might initially expect.
Millie unexpectedly lands a job at the sprawling Long Island home (played by real-life locations in neighboring New Jersey) of Nina Winchester (Seyfried), wife and mother who needs some new live-in help during her latest pregnancy. Superfluous, disengaged narration from Sweeney, adding an inner voice to a character the screenplay has purposefully obscured, is largely abandoned after the film’s opening scenes, but hints at what’s to come during the climax.
While Millie and Nina hit it off like long-lost sisters at first, their relationship quickly turns tempestuous as the employer flips out on her new housemaid for imagined transgressions. Millie discovers a mental illness behind Nina’s unpredictable actions, including a recent stay in a psychological facility, but despite walking on eggshells around her, there’s no respite from her frequent outbursts.
Nina’s level-headed husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) offers a hunky shoulder to cry on, and as the two bond over late-night showings of Family Feud, a mutual attraction begins to emerge. Of course, this will only fuel Nina’s instability, and as the sexual tension between Andrew and Millie finally boils over during a weekend away, we realize these three characters are headed for a volatile collision course.
But there’s more to The Housemaid than first meets the eye, and while we’re expecting one climactic revelation involving Sweeney’s character, another comes as a genuine surprise. If only the movie didn’t have to stop dead in its tracks after revealing its compelling narrative twists; the result is something like Kaiser Söze walking us through his entire life story after revealing his identity.
Director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy) comes from a comedy background, but The Housemaid is his third spin in the thriller genre following A Simple Favor and its sequel. It’s his best yet: here, he abandons the self-referential artifice used to generate comedic beats in those films, and dives into the genre trappings irony-free. That allows us to fully appreciate this trashy guilty pleasure as it is, and it’s a significantly more fun—and funnier—experience because of it.
But The Housemaid really works thanks to the full-blooded commitment of its cast, who attack the material with relish and elevate it well above B-movie territory. Seyfried dominates the first half with a wide-eyed, volatile performance that veers gleefully between vulnerability and menace, giving Nina a cartoonish edge that feels entirely intentional. Sweeney, meanwhile, proves adept at playing dual registers, shifting from put-upon ingénue to calculating femme fatale with convincing ease. She also shares some unusually steamy scenes with Sklenar, solid if less showy as the square-jawed husband.
Despite the structural missteps and ill-timed exposition, The Housemaid remains an enjoyably trashy thriller that knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be—and mostly succeeds at being it. Feig’s straight-faced approach, combined with two knowingly heightened performances, makes this a guilty pleasure that plays better moment to moment than it does as a whole. It has a tendency to overexplain itself when mystery would serve it best, but there’s still plenty of pulpy fun to be had for audiences willing to go along for the ride.
