The Home
- Ben Pivoz
- Jul 23
- 3 min read
Sometimes, you see a trailer and know everything there is to know about a movie, besides what it will be like to watch it for an hour and a half. The psychological horror-thriller The Home is kind of like that. The story beats are precisely what, and when, you would expect. Yet it sort of subverts those expectations by being surprisingly weird at every turn. It is all bigger, more graphic, more violent, than you would guess. Even as it unfolds, its predictability is offset by how much it throws at its audience. It certainly isn’t a great movie; I am not sure it is even good. However, it is well-staged, has a strong sense of mood, solid over-the-top performances and is committed to playing fair with its secrets all the way up to its very violent climax. Sitting through it turned out to be more entertaining than I thought it would be coming in.
Still hurting from the death of his beloved foster brother more than a decade earlier, Max is constantly in trouble with the law. When his foster father makes a deal with a judge to keep him out of jail, Max is sentenced to community service as the new super of Green Meadows retirement home. Little does he know that something evil is going on there.
The Home (90 minutes, minus the end credits) features everything you’d assume from the genre: dark, abandoned, hallways, mysterious screams, occult imagery, suspicious locked doors, secret rooms, etc. The unexpected part comes from how director/cowriter James DeMonaco takes those familiar elements and turns them up a few extra notches. The mood is heightened. Not in a funny way (despite having a famous comedian in the lead), but in a bizarre way. It builds fairly effectively, ratcheting up the horror gradually as it goes on. Granted, the story is absolutely ridiculous, the big twist is absurd and it is far too clunky with its ominous foreshadowing to truly work (the editing gets in the way of that quite a bit).
As Max, Pete Davidson seems like a strange casting choice. This is not a comedy and, if it tilts into dark humor, Davidson is the straight man. He is actually kind of fitting for the role. The screenplay uses his real-life persona to shorthand Max’s personality. You can believe that a Pete Davidson character would ignore warning signs for as long as possible and stubbornly wander where he shouldn’t. There is also an amused awkwardness he brings that can be mildly charming. He is not obnoxious here, which definitely helps.
The Home bounces between tense and silly. It is always bloodier than it needs to be (if you are squeamish when it comes to seeing syringes go into eyeballs, steer clear; that happens a whole heck of a lot here). The residents of the titular home skate the line of adding to the tension and being distractingly odd, often falling on the wrong side. It appears to be intentional, thus creating a tonal problem that DeMonaco never solves. However, there is something fascinating about movies like this. It may not work, but does it have to when enjoyment can be had from seeing how crazy it looks when it doesn’t? Probably, though I’m still close to recommending it to people who like wild messes.
3 out of 5
Cast:
Pete Davidson as Max
Christine Ebersole as Norma
John Glover as Lou
Bruce Altman as Dr. Sabian
Directed by James DeMonaco
Written by James DeMonaco and Adam Cantor
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