But, as is usually the case with such places, something is afoot. Screams are echoing through the ceiling vents. Residents are getting consensually freaky with each other in latex headgear. The fourth floor, reserved for those who need “special care,” is off limits.
Like just about every contemporary horror protagonist, Max has an unresolved traumatic backstory that will need to be confronted before the end credits roll—in this case, a foster brother who died by suicide. But it’s just one of many underdeveloped ideas in a screenplay that seems to be trying one thing after another to see what sticks. There are graphic flashes of body horror (pulled teeth, torn faces, peeling skin, nasty stuff with eyeballs) and multiple fake-out dream sequences; eventually, a creepy webcam, a pagan cult, and a magical golden goo all enter the mix, along with some filial-familial paranoia. (The title The Home is, presumably, meant to have a double meaning.) Meanwhile, on the TVs that are always on around Green Meadows, cable-news talking heads debate climate change with intermittent foreshadowing about an incoming storm called (groan) “Hurricane Greta.”
As far as tone and pacing are concerned, it’s a jumble, but the message is clear: Don’t trust the Boomers. They’re sucking the world dry and leaving messes that the rest of us are expected to clean up. The eventual big reveal pushes things into a goofier, more grotesque direction before it all left-turns into a grisly, revenge-fantasy-bloodbath finale that seems to belong in a different movie altogether. All the while, DeMonaco’s direction continues to err on the side of hokey cliché (cheap broom-closet jump scares, “spooky” old-timey needle drops, etc.), with a spatial sense that hasn’t improved much in the decade since the first Purge (not to be confused with The First Purge).
It’s the sort of stuff that can awaken a critic’s own proverbial inner Boomer, inspiring tsk-tsks about the mechanics of classic suspense, the suggestive power of horror, and the good old days of Real Cinema. But the truth is that crummy, un-scary horror movies are nothing new, and are more the norm than the exception. And while The Home doesn’t distinguish itself in terms of style or subtext (one can argue that it doesn’t have any of the latter), it at least throws out just enough gross-out imagery to keep a viewer awake.
Director: James DeMonaco
Writer: James DeMonaco, Adam Cantor
Starring: Pete Davidson, John Glover, Bruce Altman
Release Date: July 25, 2025
