To avoid jail time, troubled young man Max (Pete Davidson) takes a Daddy-arranged temp gig as live-in janitor for Jump Scare Green Meadows retirement home.
“You mean like old people?” Max asks. Yes, exactly that.
On Day 1, Max is told not to breach the fourth floor. Yes, The Home is one of those “something is wrong with this place” movies. (That’s a direct quote, by the way.) Worse, it’s as elementary plotted as the generic title suggests. After a tragic event occurs in the first half, the doctor in charge (Bruce Altman, 2006’s Running Scared) consoles our protagonist with, “I’m sorry, Max. We just didn’t see this coming,” it’s hard not to think, “Seriously? Anyone watching this will.”
The Home may be routine in its telling, but The Purge creator James DeMonaco infuses it with memorable imagery throughout, like thin icicles hanging from the eyes of a statue. Or an anatomical mannequin coming to life. Or the elderly lady engaging in rowdy coitus while wearing a mask apparently borrowed from The Strangers.
Any questions regarding story are usurped by a more transparent concern: Why is Davidson, best known for his eight-season run on TV comedy institution Saturday Night Live, starring as the lead in a horror film? This isn’t a tongue-in-cheek exercise like Bodies Bodies Bodies. He’s just not a fit for The Home, because he’s never not just Pete Davidson. I like the guy, but his tabloid infamy overshadows any performance. It’s not like DeMonaco aims to separate the art from the artist, either; the first thing Davidson does onscreen is light a bong; later, he wears a Staten Island T-shirt; and his tattoos become an actual plot point.
The movie’s final third is the dregs, until Max goes Oldboy in the Green Meadows hallway. And all during a hurricane for no reason other than the storm ups the danger ante. Flying chunks of ceiling acting as Ginsu knives aren’t enough to make a visit to The Home any sweeter. —Rod Lott