Plot Summary

I - And heard within, a lie is spunMabel (Mia Goth), a young girl, lives with her father Raymond (Matthew Goode), mother Penny (Claudie Blakley), and newborn sister Isobel in poverty, much to the disappointment of Raymond's more affluent relatives (Aunt Clarice (Miranda Richardson), Uncle Georgie (Josh McGuire), Great Aunt Eleanor (Stephanie Cole)). One night, after getting drunk and wandering into the forest, Raymond stumbles upon a sedan chair carrying the mysterious architect Mr. Van Schoonbeek, who beckons Raymond inside. Raymond returns home, rambling to his wife Penny about his encounter before falling asleep. The next day, Van Schoonbeek's employee Mr. Thomas (Mark Heap) visits the family and informs them that the architect has agreed to build a house for the family if they vacate their current home. Raymond and Penny sign the agreement and the family moves in just as the workers are finishing construction.The house is immediately peculiar: workers are seen refitting the house, but when approached by Mabel, they only stare at her vacantly without speaking; extravagant food is provided in the dining hall, but with no sign to who might be cooking or serving it; electric lights seem to hypnotize Raymond and Penny. That night, as Mabel and Isobel go to bed, Raymond and Penny find themselves fascinated by a fireplace and sewing machine in the house's withdrawing room, remaining there for hours on end without thinking of their daughters. Raymond is left baffled by the fact that he can't start a fire, while an unseen Van Schoonbeek laughs at his frustrations.The next morning, Mabel discovers that the workers have built a new room outside her window and removed the stairs, forcing them to descend via a ladder in the billiard room. She also sees Thomas acting nervously before informing her that Van Schoonbeek is making adjustments to the house; in the distance, his workers can be seen tearing down the family's old home. Soon after, Van Schoonbeek delivers new outfits to Raymond and Penny made out of couch cushions and curtains. The parents adore the outfits, though Mabel considers them strange. That night, Mabel and Isobel explore the house and enters the basement, eventually discovering their old home preserved underneath the house; finding the old house more comfortable, the two of them remain there for a time, but when hunger eventually forces them to leave, they find themselves lost in the maze of seemingly identical passageways. Meanwhile, as Penny mindlessly sews new curtains, Raymond kneels before the fireplace and - at the prompting of Mr Thomas - finally succeeds in lighting a fire by burning the family's old possessions, including Mabel's old dollhouse.Mabel and Isobel continue to wander the house in search of a way back to her parents, eventually stumbling upon a drunken and terror-stricken Thomas who confesses that he is simply an actor under the command of Van Schoonbeek; the two move on and are forced to sleep in the passage. Meanwhile, Raymond and Penny kneel before the fireplace, seemingly entranced by the burning dollhouse, oblivious to the fact that Van Schoonbeek has once again appeared nearby (sedan chair and all) and is laughing maniacally at them. Later, Mabel and Isobel inexplicably awaken to find themselves in the corridor outside the withdrawing room, and find that Van Schoonbeek is gone, while Raymond and Penny have been turned into furniture, Raymond a chair, and Penny curtains. As the dollhouse burns and the room is set on fire, Raymond and Penny seemingly awaken from their trance and beg Mabel to leave with Isobel; Penny lets her sheets down the window to allow them to escape. As the sun rises, Mabel and Isobel watch as smoke bellows from the room and their parents burn alive. Mabel and Isobel's fates are left unclear.II - Then lost is truth that can't be wonMany years later, the house is now settled in a developed city street and is currently up for sale. The developer (Jarvis Cocker) working on the house, an anthropomorphic rat, begins refurbishing the house for an upcoming property viewing; however, having laid off his construction crew in order to reduce costs in the light of his newest business loans (not helped by the fact it is in the midst of a recession), he has to do all the work himself, including installing a new rotisserie oven for the kitchen. He soon discovers an insect infestation in the house, which he ultimately identifies as being perpetrated by parasitic "fur" beetles. The developer initially quickly tries to cover up with sealant. As he works, he periodically sends updates to an apparently estranged lover, promising them a vacation in the Maldives. However, the bug problem only gets worse, with the developer quickly throwing down Boric acid all around the house; the fur beetles and larva are shown persisting in the sub-floor, and the developer spends one night sleeping in the kitchen surrounded by dead bugs.On the day of the viewing, the developer receives the wrong order of home-delivered groceries and is forced to improvise food for the event with junk food and energy drinks. As guests come in and explore the house, they find it disappointing and unable to live up to the developer's boasts. Worse still, many guests also spread dirt through the house. Even the rotisserie oven proves to be a disappointment, as the only thing the developer had to cook on it were sausages. Before long, the visitors begin to shuffle out as the developer begins losing faith in his pitch, until the house is almost empty. However, a strangely shaped older couple (Wife (Yvonne Lombard) & Husband (Sven Wollter)) express adoration for the developer's improvements and show interest in buying the house, but end up remaining long past the viewing hours, having made themselves at home in the upstairs bedroom; though puzzled, the developer allows them to stay.Over the next few days, the odd couple remain firmly settled in the house, and the bugs return in force. With the bank demanding repayment of his business loan, the developer grows impatient and calls his estranged lover again in desperation for advice, only to be hung up on with a warning to never call them "darling" again. In a frenzy, the developer begins tearing down papers from his bulletin board, before tripping over his printer and suffering an apparent hallucination in which all the bugs and larvae in the house dance before him. When the developer finally regains consciousness, he confronts the couple while they're in the bathroom, revealing them to have bodies the shape a larva and a beetle. Not noticing this, he calls the police to report the odd couple after they refuse to leave; right away, a pair of police officers (#1 (Tommy Hibbits) # 2 (Ayesha Antoine)) arrive - only to warn the developer to stop calling his estranged lover: it is revealed the estranged lover is his dentist, Dr. Jafri, who is ready to bring him to court for harassment.Then, the odd couple's extended family arrives at the house, the two claiming that they lived there beforehand. At his wit's end, the developer snaps and threatens to kill them with the Boric acid, though he ends up inhaling a mouthful and fainting, prompting an emergency visit to the hospital. The developer survives but is reduced to a seemingly catatonic state either by poison exposure or stress and doesn't even react to angry phone calls from the bank. The odd couple eventually picks the developer up and brings him home, where the couple's family throws him a welcome back party, many of them now sporting additional limbs. The final scene shows the family destroying the house, climbing up the walls and chewing through everything like bugs, having either mutated into giant insects or having been secretly insects all along. The developer, having regressed to animal intelligence, briefly emerges from the ruins of the rotisserie oven to eat some garbage before retreating back through the oven to his new home - a hole in the wall.III - Listen again and seek the sunAt an unspecified point in the future, the world has suffered a seemingly apocalyptic flood, with only a few structures remaining above water. The house has miraculously survived but is now surrounded by rising waters. Rosa (Susan Wokoma), a cat, acts as the landlord for the property, and dreams of restoring the house to its former glory for new tenants. However, her two current feline tenants, fisherman Elias (Will Sharpe) and hippie Jen (Helena Bonham Carter), have only been paying their rent with fish and stones, which, along with the sub-par materials and brown water, limits Rosa's ability to fix the house. Jen informs Rosa about her spirit partner who is set to arrive the next day, though Rosa is less than pleased.Jen's spirit partner, Cosmos (Paul Kaye), arrives by boat and sets up his tent outside the house, much to Rosa's chagrin. However, after learning that Cosmos is a craftsman, Rosa enlists him to work on the house repairs. The four cats party that night in celebration of a new beginning, while the waters continue to rise around the house as a thick fog settles in. The next day, Rosa discovers that Cosmos has been tearing up the house's floorboards to build a boat for Elias. As Cosmos continues to refit the house against Rosa's wishes, Rosa and Elias argue outside, with Rosa angry about the tenants destroying what she's been working for and Elias pointing out that, with the floodwaters still rising, the house will probably never see new tenants anyway - eventually claiming Rosa is simply afraid to leave the house. Elias later departs the house on the makeshift boat, leaving behind drawings of Rosa he made over the years, much to her sorrow. After a brief argument with Cosmos, she finds an I-beam has been installed in the ground in front of her house, further angering her.As the water and mist continues to seep into the house, Rosa starts having doubts about the house, soon having a dream about losing the house and her friends. Emerging from Cosmos' tent, Rosa sees Jen and Cosmos sailing away, begging her to join them. Resigning herself to tears, Rosa desperately pleads with the house to let her leave and rediscovers the neon sign Cosmos left. She quickly remembers that the I-beam is actually a lever; when pushed, it transforms the house into a seaworthy vessel, letting her escape as the floods destroy the surrounding foundations. Taking control of the house ship, she joins Jen, Cosmos, and a returning Elias as the four sail out into the ocean.