Pete Davidson Leads Uneven but Intriguing Horror

Ever since his brother died, Max (Pete Davidson), the protagonist of James DeMonaco’s new horror film The Home, has moved through the world with a melancholic listlessness. He’s plagued by nightmares of his final days with Luke (Matthew Miniero), a gangly teen who took his own life when Max was 11 years old. When Max, now in his 20s, can’t sleep, he hops out of bed and tags buildings with murals pulled from his dreams. 

When we meet Max, he’s been arrested by cops for trespassing and spray painting. His adoptive parents (Jessica Hecht and Victor Williams) bail him out and cut a deal with the authorities: In lieu of jail time, Max will serve as a superintendent for a nursing home. The gig isn’t ideal, but neither is the reality of prison.  

Working from a screenplay co-written with Adam Cantor, James DeMonaco, best known for the The Purge series, crafts a horror film that’s on the edge of being compelling. The movie observes Max as he navigates the increasingly strange facility that he now calls home. As he grows closer to the community of elders who populate the bourgeois care center, he comes to realize that sinister forces might be at work. Is it the nurse duo (played by Mugga and Cantor), whose furtive movements suggest secrets? Or the resident doctor (Bruce Altman), whose joviality comes off more unsettling than inviting? Either way, it’s up to Max to figure out what’s really going on. 

Similarly to Axelle Carolyn’s 2021 film The Manor, The Home has no trouble teasing out the horrific elements of a long-term care facility as well as Max’s increasingly fraying nerves. When the young man arrives at the fictional Green Meadow Retirement Home, the camera, assuming his perspective, takes in every element of the stately grounds. Close-ups of porcelain fountains that haven’t seen water in years  (cinematography is by Anastas N. Michos), paired with the plaintive score by Nathan Whitehead, create an appropriately uneasy atmosphere. Production designer Mary Lena Colston mixes a haunting spareness with an unsettling warmth for the nursing home’s interiors.

Some rooms — like that of Norma (Mary Beth Peil), an elderly woman who tries to warn Max about the nursing home, and Lou (John Glover), a former Off-Broadway star still trying to find his spark — are cozy and filled with items that tell a compassionate story about a life well-lived. Other spaces — like the fourth floor, where more difficult patients are kept and Max is instructed to avoid — are cold and ascetic. 

Despite the care with which DeMonaco and his collaborators build dread, The Home only partially delivers on its frightening promises. The film suffers from uneven pacing, as it waits a touch too long to capitalize on the suspense it musters. Max spends most of his days cleaning spills, which requires him to slink from room to room with his mop and bucket. At night, he’s tormented by terrors that feel eerily vivid. There’s a usefulness to showing this routine, especially as the line between what’s real and unreal blurs for Max, but the redundancy eventually wears on our own psyches, making the film feel like an unfortunate waiting game. 

Max, like all horror heroes, is a character with whom it should be easy to identify. He’s a traumatized figure, carrying the burden of his foster brother’s death alongside the disappointment of his parents, who are forced to repeatedly bail him out. With his mournful eyes, Davidson fits the bill aesthetically, but his performance is uneven; while the actor nails the sulky attitude, he struggles with the more earnest elements of the character, unable to fully shake the deadpan and self-deprecating affect that make his stand-up and work on Saturday Night Live shine. 

Intriguingly, the movie gestures toward broader social themes and the tension between boomers and younger generations. As Max barrels toward a conclusion, news of an unusual hurricane hits the weather channels, with on-air meteorologists suggesting that it’s caused by global warming. Here, DeMonaco teases more interesting ideas about how the greed of older people has bankrupted current and future inhabitants of this fragile planet. One wishes the film had burrowed deeper into these notions.

Still, after a few more plot diversions and a pretty sharp reveal, The Home settles into the satisfying grooves of a slasher film, also cleverly pulling from the Rosemary’s Baby school of horror. It’s in this final stretch that Davidson’s performance locks in, and the comedian transforms into a fearsome figure worth rooting for.