“You Should Have Left” Comes Home to Haunt

Just over a month after its Premium VOD debut, You Should Have Left will be available to own on DVD and digital.

Like so many other movies, it was planned for a theatrical release – where it likely would have made a pretty good profit, especially given its small budget – but punted to VOD while theaters remained closed. The haunted house thriller starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried got mixed reviews but was a popular rental on various services. Adapted by writer-director David Koepp (Secret Window), the film was based on a German novel about a wealthy writer and his much younger wife who move out to the country only to find the horrors they thought they left behind were waiting for them at their new home.

The film was a reunion for Koepp and Bacon, who collaborated 20 years prior on the disturbing Stir of Echoes.

Fans wanting to experience the film in high definition will be left out in the cold, at least in terms of physical media. There won't be a Blu-ray or 4K UHD version of the film. The lone DVD won't even have any special features. That's got to be disappointing to fans.

You Should Have Left will be available for purchase on DVD and digital on July 28.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.