THE STORY – Max, a troubled man, starts working at a retirement home and realizes its residents and caretakers harbor sinister secrets. As he investigates the building and its forbidden fourth floor, he starts to uncover connections to his own past and upbringing as a foster child.
THE CAST – Pete Davidson, John Glover, Bruce Altman & Mary Beth Peil
THE TEAM – James DeMonaco (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes
In this modern age, it seems that horror films can only fall into one of two camps. Either we are getting metaphorical examinations of trauma, thinly veiled commentary that attempt to explore deeper thematic weight, or the goal is for broadly appealing spectacle that wants to indulge in the histrionic violence as a means to entertain through a slightly lighter tone. The former has held onto its popularity because it is a means for storytellers to showcase more dramatic flair, packaged within more commercial settings. However, this can still be a yearning for more base desires, outings whose primary intention is to provide an audience with a thrilling and terrifying spectacle meant to be enjoyed on a broader level. The objective of “The Home” is to satisfy both ideologies, attempting to strike a balance between genuine tension and a subtle social commentary. Unfortunately, it fails to fulfill either task particularly well, resulting in a tedious experience.
For the central protagonist, Max (Pete Davidson), life has been difficult over the past few years. He has lost favor with his foster family ever since the death of his oldest brother years ago from suicide, which occurred when he was a child. Ever since, he has plunged into a deep hole of bad decisions, which has left his life spiraling towards its own tragic conclusion. After his most recent run-in with the law, he is given the option to perform community service in lieu of any prison sentence. The choice he’s given is to volunteer at the local retirement center, run by Dr. Sabian (Bruce Altman). The place is inherently creepy with the hordes of older citizens roaming the halls, but Max is able to find a few kindred spirits. Those are mainly the eccentric Lou (John Glover) and the sweet-hearted Norma (Mary Beth Peil). However, Max soon suspects something more nefarious is happening at this place. He has dark dreams of haunting figures in his rooms, and the screams that emanate from the secretive fourth floor only fuel his curiosity. Now he sets himself on the path to uncover what is actually occurring at this facility, revealing a dark discovery that touches all those who live within these hellish walls.
Typically, there’s a sense of escalation that occurs with these types of stories. A relatively calm and domicile environment is gradually interrupted by a series of events that rack up the tension until the terror is at a fever pitch. However, director James DeMonaco immediately sets off with a highly stylized tone that quickly indulges in kinetic editing, aggressive framing, and an oppressive sound design that struggles to build suspense from this starting point naturally. Once Max enters the facility and creepier events start revealing themselves, the showcase is less an impactful display of dread and more of a generic attempt to play off of the preconceived notion of elderly bodies slowly moving in the background, playing on instinctual repulsive thoughts. It’s all the filmmaking really has, since the dream sequences employed utilize bland imagery and the jump scares are cheaply dispensed. The finale attempts to go all-out in a chaotic and bloody mess, upping the gore to absurd levels as a means to give the ending a grandiose jolt of energy. But it’s not a very engaging display due to the film’s inconsistent deployment of graphic violence. Tonally, the film is a monotonous affair that attempts to compensate for a dull exercise beneath the surface with an overly intrusive style.
A contributing factor to the emotional distance from this material is a sloppily constructed narrative by DeMonaco and co-writer Adam Cantor. To be fair, there is a kernel of an idea that is intriguing buried at the center. The notion that those who are older continually try to feast on the vitality of the young, draining their capacity to reach for a better life as they continue to coast by without a care for how their actions have doomed future generations is a fascinating concept to attach to a horror film. It would be an engrossing commentary if the delivery were not so blunt. The constant news reports that play in the background, detailing the effects of global warming, are not a particularly subtle nod to this exploration, and the broadly drawn characters don’t provide much depth to mine either. Max is given a traditional backstory filled with trauma, but his arc is not at all compelling because his journey is a convoluted showcase of familiar tropes and stilted catharsis. By the time the full-blown chaos erupts in the last act, none of these characters has created any kind of emotional investment that would prompt genuine care for their outcome, and the film ends on a laborious note of indifference.
Perhaps this material might have been more successful had a more captivating persona inhabited the lead role, but Davidson just can’t make this flaccid character any more enthralling. There is a decent everyman presence that Davidson can embody, but his flat deliveries do not create an appealing personality to follow. He attempts to sell a nonchalant disregard, a terrified aura, and even a more proactive hero who takes charge at the end, but none of it is a convincing portrait. There’s more endearment from the likes of Glover and Peil, with the latter giving the film’s best performance by a great margin. Her genuine sweetness, mixed with the encroaching anxiety that flashes in her eyes, is always an alluring display that is greatly appreciated during the more mundane sections of the story. Glover is more of a boisterous and idiosyncratic figure who can always be entertaining with a strange look or off-kilter delivery. Those two make up for the underwhelming antagonist that Altman plays, though he is no doubt hampered by a screenplay that does little to invest any kind of provocative layers within him.
One doesn’t have to expect greatness from a movie like “The Home.” Even though there are grander ambitions laced within its narrative, at the core it really just needs to be a thrilling spectacle that entices an audience with its decent horror set pieces. The results are a scattered vision that delivers its metaphors with such bluntness that they lose potency, but also renders its premise with little tension, making it difficult to be drawn into the trappings of the story. With mediocre scares, a messy plot, and mostly bland performances, there’s very little redeeming here. There isn’t much to appreciate on a thematic level, nor is there anything to truly revel in horror delights due to the poor execution. Instead, what’s presented is a mundane effort that finds little to craft to highlight any novel or innovative element.
