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And heard within, a lie is spun
Mabel
- Voiced by: Mia Goth
- Adorably Precocious Child: Mabel is quite mature for her age. She's unfazed by her relatives' condescending attitude and is the only one who's unaffected by the House's hypnotism. As her parents grow more neglectful, she steps in to care for baby sister and miraculously doesn't break down in tears when the House continues to torment her.
- Break the Cutie: She loses both her parents in a rather horrific fashion at the end of the segment.
- Kid Has a Point: She is right about how moving into the mansion was a bad idea.
- Only Sane Man: While her parents have become lost in the luxury of their new mansion, Mabel is the only one who does not let her ego overcome her.
- Promotion to Parent: After Raymond and Penny die in the withdrawing room fire, Mabel effectively becomes a parent to her baby sister.
- Uncertain Doom: At the end of the story, she and Isobel may have been able to escape the house, but it's the middle of winter, they don't have any food, the nearest house/village is probably miles away, and they likely have no idea where they are going. We never find out what happened to them, so they may have survived, however, and the track that plays during the ending coupled with the sun rising in the distance suggests hope instead of despair.
Raymond
- Voiced by: Matthew Goode
- And I Must Scream: He and Penny are transformed into furniture and left almost completely paralyzed but still conscious enough to be aware of their plight. In the end, they can't escape the fire that Raymond has accidentally set... though given their misery, it's doubtful that they'd ever want to.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted to re-live his wealthy days before his father gambled away all of his money. He got his wish, too bad the price to pay was less than worthy.
- A Degree in Useless: One of his relatives states that he has an (unknown) education, yet he is only barely able to make a living while looking after his wife and daughter.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After the miserable visit from his relatives, Raymond goes on to drink his pain away, hence how he ends up bumping into Van Schoonbeek in the first place.
- Dying as Yourself: In their final moments, the transformed Raymond and Penny finally overcome their corruption and beg for Mabel to save herself and her sister, even opening the window to help their children escape the fire.
- Fatal Flaw: Insecurity. He is deeply affected by his visiting relative's condescending words about his Riches to Rags life, whcih causes him to set the conflict of the segment in motion.
- Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the story, he and his wife Penny beg their children to escape as the house burns around them.
- Impoverished Patrician: Raymond used to be as wealthy as the rest of his family, but his father reputedly blew the finances on gambling and booze; as a result, despite his upbringing and education, Raymond is left living in a small but comfortable cottage in the middle of nowhere with only a few small keepsakes of his old life. Those of the family who weren't bankrupted by his father's downfall are disgusted and rub his poverty in his face on the one occasion they bother to visit.
- Laughing Mad: An early sign that Raymond is being corrupted by the House is the fact that he abruptly bursts out laughing at the sight of his cottage being pulled down by Van Schoonbeek's men.
- Objectshifting: He's transformed into an armchair by Van Schoonbeek.
- Parents as People: He's not a bad guy, it's just that he has very bad priorities about what matters in life.
- Parental Neglect: Entranced by the luxury of the House, he and Penny gradually lose interest in their children in favor of their petty obsessions, to the point that Mabel has to look after Isobel herself. By the ending, Raymond can't even bring himself to pay attention to Mabel's desperate pleas for help, not even when it becomes clear that she and Isobel are going to starve to death if they can't escape from the upper floors of the House.
- Pyromaniac: Raymond grows increasingly obsessed with starting a fire in the withdrawing room's hearth, especially once it becomes clear that nothing will burn... except for possessions of sentimental value.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: As Van Schoonbeek and the House corrupts them, he and Penny grow progressively more neglectful of their children, even snapping angrily at Mabel when she calls their bizarre-looking new clothes "foolish." This comes to a head when Raymond callously destroys Mabel's dollhouse simply because he wants something to burn in the fire.
Penelope "Penny"
- Voiced by: Claudie Blakley
- And I Must Scream: She and Raymond are transformed into furniture and left almost completely paralyzed but still conscious enough to be aware of their plight. In the end, they can't escape the fire that Raymond has accidentally set... though given their misery, it's doubtful that they'd ever want to.
- Dying as Yourself: In their final moments, the transformed Raymond and Penny finally overcome their corruption and beg for Mabel to save herself and her sister, even opening the window to help their children escape the fire.
- Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the story, she and Raymond beg their children to escape. Penny opens a window and uses her now curtain body to allow her children to climb out of the house as it burns down; losing her life but allowing her children to escape.
- Objectshifting: She turns into a set of curtains at the end of the segment.
- Parents as People: Like Raymond, she has an insecure side to her but isn't really a bad person.
- Parental Neglect: Entranced by the luxury of the House, she and Raymond gradually lose interest in their children in favor of their petty obsessions, to the point that Mabel has to look after Isobel herself.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: As Van Schoonbeek and the House corrupts them, she and Raymond grow progressively more neglectful of their children, even snapping angrily at Mabel when she calls their bizarre-looking new clothes "foolish."
Isobel
- Uncertain Doom: At the end of the story, she and Mabel may have been able to escape the house, but it's the middle of winter, they don't have any food, the nearest house/village is probably miles away, and they likely have no idea where they are going. We never find out what happened to them, so they may have survived, however, and the track that plays during the ending coupled with the sun rising in the distance suggests hope instead of despair.
- Improbable Infant Survival: The infant Isobel is able to survive through things that most babies wouldn't, including tumbling down a stone stairway without so much as a wail and falling several feet into snow without issue.
Mr. Van Schoonbeek
- Voiced by: Barney Pilling
- Evil Old Folks: He was supposedly a friend of Raymond's father, and though his exact age isn't mentioned, he generally seems a bit on the elderly side - being white-haired, leaning on a cane, and being shorter than the other adult characters. By the end of the story, he's also engineered the corruption of Mabel's parents, followed swiftly by their deaths.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Does this to Mr. Thomas at one point.
- Exact Words: Van Schoonbeek promised to build him a mansion that will be like "a beacon on the hill." The chapter ends with Van Schoonbeek arranging for the drawing room to go up in flames with Raymond and Penny trapped inside, resulting in a beacon-like fire that can be seen on the hilltop for miles around.
- For the Evulz:Van Schoonbeek seems to be motivated by nothing more than malicious jollies, given that he can blow vast sums of money on building extravagant and possibly eldritch homes in which to torture his clients. Certainly, he didn't seem to get much out of arranging for the corruption, transformation, and death of Mabel's parents other than cheap laughs.
- Giggling Villain: Exaggerated. He only giggles throughout the entire story. What makes it worse is that he's capable of speech, since we see him talking normally from a distance, and so he's choosing to do nothing but let out high-pitched chuckles whenever he appears.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: A shot of the house has two illuminated windows become Van Schoonbeek's eyes as a phantom overlay of his face fades in front of it, signifying his unnatural influence on it.
- Humanoid Abomination: Van Schoonbeek appears generally human but is somehow able to teleport himself and his sedan chair around the countryside, can apparently make himself invisible as will, and create houses that feature Alien Geometries and other weird effects, and at one point, he even emerges from the shadows behind Mr. Thomas as a giant. It's not certain if he's an Evil Sorcerer, Satan, or some other eldritch being.
- Karma Houdini: Van Schoonbeek is last seen chuckling over the transformed Raymond and Penny, satisfied with his handiwork, and by the time Mabel arrives in the room, he's long since vanished without facing any repercussions for his crimes. Even the fire doesn't seem like much of a setback considering the house somehow lingers on despite the damage.
- Taunting the Transformed: Just before Raymond and Penny fully transform into furniture, Van Schoonbeek can be seen gloating over them, laughing triumphantly as his two victims succumb.
- The Voiceless: Van Schoonbeek is seen talking to Raymond at a distance, but never says a word onscreen, instead only laughing at the family's suffering.
Mr. Thomas
- Voiced by: Mark Heap
- Drowning My Sorrows:Near the end, Mr. Thomas is shown drinking after being driven mad by his employer's constant modifications to the house and his own guilt over dooming the family.
- Just Following Orders: At one point, he sobbingly declares he’s just an actor for Van Schoonbeek.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He is shown to be intensely remorseful at putting Mabel and her family in such a frightening position when we see him in the attic.
- Mouth of Sauron: Mr. Thomas, Van Schoonbeek's representative; while the architect is apparently able to speak for himself, judging by his conversation with Raymond in the sedan chair, but he prefers to make his commands known through an intermediary. Thomas suffers a breakdown in the ending and admits that he's just an actor given a script to follow.
- Sanity Slippage: He
- Uncertain Doom: Unlike Mabel and Isobel, he's never seen escaping and his chances don't look nearly as good given the state he was last seen in, though frankly dying could be considered preferable to servitude to Van Schoonbeek.
Raymond's Family
- Voiced by: Stephanie Cole (Great Aunt Eleanor), Josh McGuire (Uncle Georgie), Miranda Richardson (Aunt Clarice)
- Jerkass: Raymond's relatives; all of them spend their visit regarding the cottage with open disgust, sneering at Raymond's impoverished fortunes without offering to help, and vocally dismissing Raymond as a weakling and a failure like his father.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Great Aunt Eleanor might have been condescending about it, but she is right about how Raymond's father wasted his time constantly gambling, which is the source of Raymond's family being degraded into lower-class.
- Pet the Dog: Them making a visit to Raymond despite not being in the same social class as them anymore is rather decent of them.
- Upper-Class Twit: While all of them could apply for this trope, Georgie gets a special mention for his cheeky attitude.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: They are never shown again after the beginning of the segment (and by extension, the film as a whole) after their visit with Raymond.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had they been nicer to Raymond and his family, the events of the movie never would have happened.
Then lost is truth that can't be won
The Developer
- Voiced by: Jarvis Crocker
- Ambiguously Gay: It is revealed that the supposed lover the Developer has been talking to throughout the story is in fact his male dentist. However, it's not made clear if he actually is gay or if living in the House has made him delusional enough to mistake the dentist for a woman, although he doesn't seem particularly upset when the facts are brought to his attention. Earlier on he talks about his "relationship" to a clearly male investor though he might have meant it in a more professional tone.
- Butt-Monkey: He goes through hell-in-a-handbasket trying to renovate a house and suffers through misfortune-after-misfortune, though most of it is self-inflicted.
- Cutting Corners: Since his town is suffering through a recession and fearing he may lose more money if he hires a design crew, the Developer undertakes decorating the house single-handedly, which takes at least less-than-a-week to do. He ends up making the house look Awesome, but Impractical to many potential buyers.
- Despair Event Horizon: After his attempt at killing the Odd Couple backfires and he ends up in the hospital, the Developer mentally throws in the towel and starts rolling with whatever's thrown at him.
- Dramatically Missing the Point:
- The Developer angers his supposed lover on the phone by calming them darling, so instead he promises to never call them that again, in the process calling them sweetheart. Cue phone getting put down.
- The Developer makes a phone call to the police about the Odd Couple, whilst his own doorbell is being rung. When he answers it, he's greeted by two police officers, and in spite of the fact he had just phoned the station seconds ago, believes they're here in response to that. Instead, and furthermore, the police are there to tell the Developer that his Dentist, whom he believes is his lover, is threatening to press charges against him if he continues to harass and stalk him with unwanted advances. The Developer's response is to acknowledge he has been doing this but also state he's done nothing wrong and that it's not important to his own grievances.
- Dumbass Has a Point: He's not wrong to want to get some squatters out of a mansion he is supposedly trying to sell.
- Furry Reminder: Early on, the Developer eats a candy bar in rodent-like fashion. Takes a more extreme and unpleasant turn when he goes full-animal at the end.
- I Reject Your Reality: When confronted by two police officers on the grounds of harassing his dentist by pretending he's his lover over the phone, the Developer claims it's not important and that he's done nothing wrong. A rewatch of prior events implies he's trying to force this delusion into the Dentist's own life whilst ignoring the wrongness of it all; his comments to the cops demonstrate he's fully aware that he's been calling his dentist, so it's not a mistake on his end, and when he's hung up on for the final time, the Developer shouts "Dammit!" coming across as angry at the recipient for not playing along rather that upset that his partner has cut communications.
- Naked Nutter: Having been driven completely insane by his experiences over the course of the episode, the Developer is last seen almost completely naked except for his fur, having clearly chewed through most of his hospital gown at some point during the ending montage.
- No Sense of Personal Space: During the viewing, the Developer is so anxious to make a good impression that he frequently gets too close to the prospective buyers, at one point touching a guest's hand while gathering around the kitchen island. Needless to say, the guests find this off-putting.
- Rage Breaking Point: The Developer is reduced to incoherent screams as he realizes he's stuck with two parasitic customers, he's hung up on by his supposed lover, tearing down paper and breaking his laptop, and the police won't help him on accounts of his crazy behavior.
- Removing the Earpiece: Throughout the story, the Developer wears an earpiece as part of his image as a savvy real estate developer, rarely ever removing it except in his lowest moments; even when he ends up in the hospital, it remains firmly clipped to one ear. However, after completely losing his mind in the finale, he throws it away. More specifically, he kicks it away with his hind leg, having regressed to animal intelligence and chewed off all his other items of clothing.
- Sanity Slippage: The Developer may not have been completely sane to begin with, but he really starts to lose it after the failure of the viewing - to the point that he even tries to murder the two squatters with pesticide. After this fails, he's left staring at the wall of his hospital room in a catatonic trance. After finding himself sharing his home with the bug people, he reverts to animal behavior, eating garbage and living in a burrow behind the oven.
- Skewed Priorities: When come cops confront him about his Harassing Phone Calls to his dentist Dr. Jeffrey, he considers that matter to be unimportant in comparison to a bunch of squatters in the mansion.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Throughout the story, the Developer is on the phone with an apparent lover, often begging for affection from them despite their low opinion of him. In the climax, it turns out that he's been talking to his dentist, who is not happy at being constantly harassed by an overfamiliar patient and sends the police to warn him off. For his part, the Developer doesn't even seem to understand why this is a problem. It's also implied that the Odd Couple and the strange happenings are all in his head.
- Too Dumb to Live: He makes many scatterbrained decisions that couldn't save his life, like trying to decorate the house by himself just to save his cash (in his defense, there was a recession going on), doing a half-assed job at getting rid of the bugs inhabiting the house (along with not wearing a mask while putting poison on the floor), and thinking that two cops who have just appeared on the doorstep of the mansion are here to get rid of the Odd Couple, despite having just phoned the cops just a moment ago, as well as downplaying stalking his dentist as a lesser matter compared to The Odd Couple squatting in the mansion.
- Unanthropomorphic Transformation: After being driven mad by the events of the episode, the Developer begins crawling around on all fours, eating garbage, and chittering like a real rat, ending the episode by crawling into a burrow dug behind the oven.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He's the main character in a more comedic segment of the film, but he has alot of vices to him.
- Wealthy Yacht Owner: The Developer fantasizes about retiring to a yacht after successfully selling the House. This plan doesn't pan out, of course.
The Odd Couple
- Voiced by: Sven Wolter (The Odd Husband), Yvonne Lombard (The Odd Wife)
- Affably Evil:The Odd Couple never say an unkind word to the Developer at any point, and even show up to retrieve him from the hospital when everyone else seems to have abandoned him... but they have no intention of ending their parasitic squatting, nor do they seem to care that they are driving the Developer insane. They're actually giant mutant versions of the bugs that have been infesting the place. But hey, at least they allow the Developer to join them!
- Big Bad: Of the second segment.
- Exact Words: The Odd Couple repeatedly tells the Developer "We are extremely interested in your house." Note that they never say they're interested in living there. Their fascination is a lot more literal—they're giant insects planning to eat the entire place.
- Red Right Hand: The Odd Couple; ostensibly, they're anthropomorphic rats like the other characters in the story, but their body shape is quite dissimilar: the male has a squat, wide body, while the female has a long, slender frame with an oddly-segmented bone structure. It turns out that they're giant versions of the insects infesting the House.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: The couple who are "interested" in the House never actually buy it, instead sleeping on the property, lounging in the hot tub, watching TV, and having the Developer wait on them, even inviting their entire extended family to stay. They're actually giant versions of the insects that the Developer's been trying to eradicate.
- Unnervingly Heartwarming: After the Developer accidentally swallows poison and has to be taken to the hospital, the Odd Couple eventually visit so they can take him back to the House - where their extended family is hosting a welcome home party for him, even applauding him as he enters. However, as sweet as this is, it's still undeniably creepy because the Developer has been driven insane by the Odd Couple's unwanted squatting... and the family are starting to look very weird. And the final scene features the Developer regressing to animal intelligence and joining the family of giant beetles in destroying all his hard work.
- Wall Crawl: In the finale, the Odd Couple and their family can be seen scuttling up the walls and ceilings, a sign that they're actually giant versions of the insects infesting the House.
Dr. Derek Jeffrey
The Developer's dentist who he thinks is also his boyfriend.
- The Ghost: While he does play sort of a role in the segment, he does not appear.
- Rage Breaking Point: He becomes angered by the Developer's many inappropriate phone calls where he refers to them with pet names, so he call the police and threatens legal action should he continue.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By complaining to the cops about the Developer's advances, he's ensured that the Odd Couple and their relatives are not evicted from the house.
The Two Cops
- Voiced by: Bimini Bon-Boulash (Police Officer #1), Ayesha Antoine (Police Officer #2)
- Police Are Useless: The Developer calls the police to get the Odd Couple out of his house, as he does rightfully own it and they have essentially squatted and taken advantage of him. Unfortunately, two officers who come to the door a moment later are only there to issue a warning from his dentist, but they leave in a huff without bothering to listen to his complaint, presumably having written him off as a mentally ill stalker - though admittedly, the Developer doesn't help his case by acknowledging his harassment. As such, there's no visible response to his actual call to the police, to the point that nobody notices him being removed from the hospital by the accused squatters, or that the horde of people who came in never left and are crawling up walls.
Listen again and seek the sun:
Rosa
- Voiced by: Susan Wokoma
- I Reject Your Reality: She seems unable to fathom that her tenants can't make rent due to being unable to find jobs in a flooding world.
- Implausible Deniability: The town is sunken, the House is following suit, and most of the tenants have already fled, yet Rosa insists on carrying on business as if everything is normal.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: She ultimately decides that repairing the house will be too much for her and decides to sail across the sea with her tenants.
- Selective Obliviousness: Rosa is actually completely aware of the flooding but refuses to face it, simply telling Jen "there's nothing to talk about" while water is already pooling at her feet.
- Skewed Priorities: She is more concerned with restoring her home than surviving in an apocalyptic flood.
Jen
- Voiced by: Helena Bonham Carter
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Her archetype. She loves meditating, dancing to new age music, has a mellow personality and pays in healing rocks. Her partner Cosmos also fits the bill, being even mellower than Jen and prone to performances of throat-singing and the digeridoo. In a surprising divergence from how the trope is generally presented, however, they are shown to be the most willing to face reality for what it is, and maturely decide to move on together, encouraging Rosa to follow suit.
Cosmos
- Voiced by: Paul Kaye
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Him in a handbasket. Jen knows he's coming without really having a way to communicate reliably, he seems to understand the vibes of the House, and has an umbrella that somehow becomes a tent implied to be fully furnished and somehow connects to the House's basement. But he never does anything fully unnatural, and we never see the inside of the tent either.
Elias
- Voiced by: Will Sharpe
- Implied Love Interest: It's never outright said, but Elias is implied to have a crush on Rosa (signified by longing stares, making her the focus for a lot of his art and staying around long enough to join Rosa along with the others when she comes out to sea), and she is just not acknowledging it because she is fixated on fixing the House. On some level it's also implied Rosa reciprocates, as she seems particularly hurt to learn he wants to leave, sad when he does without saying goodbye - but leaves art for her and has a vision that emphasizes him being gone.
