PLOT: Follows Max, who realizes that the residents and caretakers in the retirement home he started working at hide sinister secrets.
REVIEW: A nursing home has always felt like an ideal setting for a horror film. There are so many different angles to take, whether it be supernatural or simple elderly abuse. The Home decides to take the mystery route, as the staff are clearly up to no good. The story follows Max (Davidson), a foster kid who has been lost in life since his foster brother took his own life. After some criminal acts (the man loves to vandalize buildings with nice paintings, which is apparently worth jail time), he’s forced to work at an old folks home, to serve his community service. But he starts to notice that something is wrong with the residents, and wants to save them from the evil taking them.
Pete Davidson should probably just stick to comedy as he struggles a bit with the dramatic moments. He feels disinterested most of the film, really clashing with how Max is supposed to be. There’s no drive there, and it really just feels like he’s helping out the nursing home residents just because the script says so. I did enjoy his connection with Mary Beth Peil‘s Norma, who warns him of the weird goings on at the home. But there’s little else to latch onto here. The character is incredibly inept and is so slow with his realizations that everything has to be spelled out to him, and therefore the audience.
I went into this film knowing absolutely nothing, so I was pleased to see John Glover pop up as one of the patients of the nursing home. He’s always been such an underrated actor, and he seems to be having a blast with this insane script. There’s plenty of material for him to sink his teeth into, and he is one of the only fully formed characters in the film. Everyone else feels like a caricature, whose only true purpose is to either creep out the viewer or lull them into a false sense of security. So it’s really hard to even care for what happens to the residents, let alone Max himself.
There are some fairly violent moments in The Home. But the biggest issue is that so many of them are enhanced with CGI, ruining the practical effect on display. There’s also a bunch of crazy demonic imagery that, given where things end up, makes absolutely zero sense. It can really feel like they’re just throwing various horror tropes at the screen and seeing what sticks. Despite James DeMonaco having been involved in horror for years, this really feels like someone who doesn’t like the genre and is just trying to check boxes. It results in a really hollow experience and fails to deliver any true horror.
It’s not enough to redeem the film, but the final 10 minutes are absolutely bonkers and certainly raise the rewatchability factor. So much chaos and karmic retribution that I was smiling from ear to ear. I was in genuine disbelief at what was happening. It’s too bad the rest of the film didn’t conjure up the same feelings. There’s probably a decent movie in here somewhere, but it was presented in such a cheesy way that this can really only fall into the B-movie category. And, as the few walkouts in my theater can probably attest, this isn’t the usual fare from Pete Davidson, with mixed signals as to who this film is actually for. It may just be for those that like the so-bad-it’s-good genre.
THE HOME IS PLAYING IN THEATERS ON JULY 25TH, 2025.
