New Horror Feature, "The Home" Causes Eyerolls and Walk-Outs

[The following review is spoiler-free]

Lately, AMC's new Unseen Screen tradition has been filling out theaters across the country. The premise is that you buy a discounted ticket to a screening, knowing only the genre and rating of the film you're about to see. These screenings give audiences a chance to see highly-anticipated films early, and the element of surprise has people coming back for more every month. Last night's Unseen Screen presentation was The Home, a new horror film by James DeMonaco starring Pete Davidson, and to say audiences are disappointed would be a grave understatement. I'm being truthful when I say I have never seen so many people walk out of a theater early...

The Home is a new psychological horror film by the director of The Purge series, James DeMonaco. It follows Pete Davidson's character, Max, a troubled young man who starts a new job at retirement home, Green Meadows, that he soon finds out is hiding a dark secret. The following ninety minutes are packed to the gills with screams, gore, and plenty of gruesome body horror in the third act.

I'm sure I wasn't alone walking into AMC last night thinking that the mystery movie was going to be Michael Shanks' Together, starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie, a film that has been filling ad spaces for the past month. So I suppose the cold reception to The Home could be partially due to audience expectations, but even with that working against it, there are so many things this film does undeniably wrong. Pete Davidson does a decent job at playing a directionless twentysomething, but he's essentially playing the same character he always does. It's surprising to see him in a non-comedic role, but he doesn't feel nearly as out of place doing so as some of his fellow SNL alumni.

The Home greatly suffers from a lack of cohesion. When the retirement home's sinister secret is revealed, audiences didn't see it coming, not because the script was well-written but because all of the buildup had nothing to do with the overall scheme. A lot of moments feel as if they were just written for cheap scares, rather than building a consistent story. The plot, setting, and body horror elements all feel eerily similar to 2016's A Cure for Wellness, a forgotten psychological horror film by Gore Verbinski, a project that was neither critically nor commercially successful, so I have no idea why DeMonaco and company would want to make something so similar. It's clear that the filmmakers were trying to go for a mysterious Eyes Wide Shut vibe, but the script reads more like M. Night Shymalan at his very worst.

Unfortunately, it is abundantly clear why AMC chose The Home as this month's Unseen Screen feature, because if people weren't essentially duped into watching it nobody would buy tickets. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, the only star power it has is Pete Davidson, and the story feels like something that was collecting dust in A24's Gmail inbox.

It's been a long time since I've seen a film that has made me bury my face in my hands, not from fear but from sheer annoyance. Every time I thought the film was going somewhere, another scene would pop up and remind me why I started to detest the film in the first place. Even the cathartic ending of the movie feels disconnected and contrived.

So no, I would not place The Home on your watchlist for your next movie night. Let's only hope that for DeMonaco's next project, he does something more worthy of the audience's time.