A young man on his last chance before serious penalties for his criminal behavior takes a job as a superintendent at an old folks home where nothing is as it seems.
I never liked Pete Davidson. I wouldn’t say I hated him, but rather I just didn’t quite get the appeal. His comedic chops were alright and all, but nothing he did had ever resonated with me. Not until I saw The Home. While it’s far from a perfect film, and it has several flaws, those are extremely easy to forgive once the plot starts rolling. It’s unique, fresh, and a shockingly new breath of fresh air into the stale world or horror, branching out from the “elevated horror” styles of recent standalone films and giving us a hefty dose of classical horror that feels reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby and Burnt Offerings. And it shocked the absolute hell out of me, not only with how good it is, and how entertaining it is to watch, but with its absolutely bat shit insane finale, which is quite possibly the most I’ve cheered for a character in a film in ages.
Even with his track record in horror, James DeMonaco wasn’t really on my radar, either. Much like Davidson, his work was outside of my preference, and I just didn’t pay him much mind. But The Home changed that completely. Written by him in conjunction with Adam Cantor, the film is incredibly well thought out, with twists, turns, red herrings, and enough nostalgia to horror of the 70s to keep most anyone hooked if you give it just a bit to get going. The beginning of the film is paced a little slower, with the slow burn buildup sometimes feeling a bit long in the tooth, but once the proverbial insanity hits the fan, all those pacing issues are forgiven, and quickly. Every tiny breadcrumb dropped along the way in the beginning is picked up and paid off by the third act, and with some really fantastic framework and storytelling on display here, it’s a truly phenomenal film, even with the pacing issues.
And a hearty amount of the praise for the film boils straight down to Pete Davidson’s performance. While I expected him to go for a comedic spin, or at least dashes of humor, he instead chose to play the role of Max so endearingly well that I could not peel my eyes off of the screen. He’s the kind of character you want to see win, even in a horror movie where it doesn’t seem likely or possible. I commend Davidson in every possible way for his work here, and I hate myself for ignoring him up to now. Don’t sleep on him or pigeon hole the guy and write off the whole project, because he’s actually the true saving grace of the entire film. Backed up with fantastic performances from John Glover and Bruce Altman, the highlight of the film is the touching chemistry between Davidson and Mary Beth Peil, which feels so tangibly human that it’ll force you to love them both.
While there’s a few moments where budgetary constraints can be felt, those are more than excused by the wonderful special effects work. While it could easily be dismissed as “gross out horror” in a few ways, that style works really well here, with the sequences of gore and horror actually rivaling films like Misery with how the buildup makes everything so much more foul and squirm inducing. The cinematography by Anastas N. Michos is intrusively woven with the story, and score by Nathan Whitehead, one of my favorite composers from his work on the video game Days Gone, is also deeply enthralling and phenomenal in every way.
While I don’t think it’ll be a movie everyone will love, The Home is one of those films that resonated with me and played upon some of my deepest fears, specifically the ways in which the elder generations can quite literally feed upon the youth of the world. And at the very least, the last 10 minutes will finally explain how Pete Davidson gets so much ass.