The Home

The Home
Starring Pete Davidson, John Glover, Bruce Altman, Ethan Phillips
Directed by James DeMonaco

There's a moment in this movie where Pete Davidson's Max yells out "what is going on?" and I have to say I agree with that question. "The Home" had a lot of potential - the mystery was intriguing, the setting was unsettling, and the cast - some of them anyway - really did well with their performances. However, once the reveal is...revealed...it turns into a head scratcher if I've ever seen one. It seemed like co-writers James DeMonaco and Adam Cantor wanted to act smarter than they are, providing a "unique" twist that'd blow audiences' minds - but instead it blew our 95 minutes we'll never get back.

Max (Pete Davidson) is a thug who is acting out still years after his older brother's suicide, and has never gotten over it. He's arrested for vandalism and instead of prison time he's given community service at a local old folks' home as a janitor. At first he hates it, but he befriends some of the residents including Lou (John Glover), an eccentric former actor, and Norma (Mary Beth Piel) who takes a liking to Max because, as she says, "heart recognizes heart." Soon after arriving, however, Max notices strange occurrences happening in the home, especially on the fourth floor that he's forbidden to enter. As the secrets build up, Max finds his life in danger as he struggles to find a way out.

"The Home" is one of those movies, as I mentioned before, that acts like it's smarter than it is. What's the big mystery happening in the home? A government conspiracy? Supernatural doings? A reality show competition featuring horny octogenarians? The movie would've saved itself if the mystery made sense, but ultimately it doesn't, and instead it does the generic "Scooby Doo" ending where the villain reveals their plans in great detail in hopes of having audiences applaud the big swing it attempted to make, but instead we were left with "huh?" followed by "eh."

Pete Davidson isn't one of those actors you go to if you want to tell a decent story, but instead an actor you bring into your project to serve as the generic bad boy. To that end he doesn't even succeed here, as he's supposed to be a ne’er-do-well who's sentenced to community service but is actually really nice to everyone and shows no bad bones in his body. He also isn't the smartest person when it comes to discovering truths, and literally has to have things spoon-fed to him at times, and walks around the movie with an odd smirk like he knows what he's doing is trash but doesn't care.

The editing in this movie is atrocious, like a made-for-TV movie. It continually fades to black to introduce new scenes, and tries the Paul Greengrass style of frantic camera work when needed to illicit fear in people for the numerous cheap jump scares you'll only jump at because they jolt you awake from your slumber. 

There's numerous plots and stories that this movie also tries to tell, set against the backdrop of an incoming hurricane (to watch a better horror mystery hurricane movie, check out Davidson's other work "Bodies Bodies Bodies" instead). The movie touches on the fears of the aging stuck in an old folks home where they're forgotten and treated poorly - a fact that all too sadly happens in real life - and then there's Max's brother's death that he's still dealing with, his adopted family, the citizens in the home itself, and something about "finding the marked ones" that just exasperates the story.

What could've been a decent mystery set against the backdrop of a strange setting instead turned into a self-indulgent drivel of a film that will easily be forgotten and dumped into the obscurity of existence.

The Score: D-