The Home (2025)
Directed by: James DeMonaco
Premise: The new live-in caretaker (Pete Davidson) of a retirement home suspects that the facility hides a sinister secret.
What Works: James DeMonaco has used the horror genre as an avenue for political filmmaking. He wrote and directed the bulk of the Purge series which critiqued economics and gun violence in America. With The Home, DeMonaco returns to the horror genre with another social commentary. The Home is a lightly disguised metaphor of the way society’s resources have been diverted to the elder generation at the expense of the younger generation. The scenario has interesting implications and The Home has shades of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Brian Yuzna’s Society in its politics as well as in its grotesquery. The filmmakers deserve some credit for the boldness of their critique and the political point is reinforced by details scattered throughout the movie, especially the television news segments playing in the background.
What Doesn’t: The political implications of The Home are about all the movie has going for it and those themes are mostly obvious and simplistic. By framing exploitation in generational terms, the filmmakers buy into a “boomers versus millennials” idea that played out in the cultural discourse several years ago. Without any additional nuance, that generational conflict is a flat and stupid way of understanding the world. Political metaphors have to be embedded in stories that are compelling with characters that are interesting. That’s the fatal flaw of The Home. The story is not told well. It doesn’t build up to its revelations and the big shocking twist does not make sense. Scenes feel disconnected from one another. There’s little dramatic build up. When the movie gets to its gory finale, what should be a cathartic payoff comes off dull. The Home is not very scary. The filmmakers opt for the obnoxious nightmare fake out cliché, doing it more than once. The characters are not interesting. Pete Davidson plays a troubled guy who becomes the caretaker of the retirement community. Davidson is good in the quiet dramatic moments but The Home doesn’t use him very well and Davidson never seems all that afraid. James DeMonaco is clearly trying to replicate Jordan Peele’s successes in Get Out but The Home has none of the character, pacing, mood, or intelligence of that movie.
Bottom Line: The Home has the kernel of a provocative idea but it is treated superficially and the filmmakers don’t dramatize it well. This is a poorly made and cliché ridden horror picture.
Episode: #1058 (July 27, 2025)