Adam Cantor, Beth Dixon, Bruce Altman, horror, James DeMonaco, Jessica Hecht, John Glover, Mary Beth Piel, Matthew Miniero, movies, Mugga, Pete Davidson, reviews, The Home, Victor Williams
August 2, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by James DeMonaco
Some language in French with no subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the horror film “The Home” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: After getting arrested for graffiti vandalism, a troubled young man is sentenced to community service as a live-in superintendent at a senior citizen group home, where he discovers sinister activities.
Culture Audience: “The Home” will appeal primarily to people who fans of star Pete Davidson and body horror movies that are formulaic and substandard.
“The Home” wastes time with repetitive jump scares that go nowhere. In this predictable and substandard horror movie, a retirement home’s superintendent discovers sinister secrets. A plot twist toward the end can’t save this dull misfire.
Directed by James DeMonaco, “The Home” was co-written by DeMonaco and Adam Cantor. The movie takes place in New York state but was actually filmed in Passaic County, New Jersey. There are massive plot holes and several questions left unanswered in this mishandled film, which is more concerned about showing gross-out body horror than having a coherent plot.
“The Home” begins with a stoner graffiti artist named Max (played by Pete Davidson), who’s in his mid-20s, waking up on his living room couch while looking like he has a hangover. Max lives in an unnamed city in upstate New York. A TV in the living room showing a news report that a heavy storm is about to hit the tri-state (New York/New Jersey/Connecticut) area.
Max then has a flashback to 2009, when he was an 11-year-old boy (played by Jagger Nelson), living in a foster home with his 18-year-old foster brother Luke (played by Matthew Miniero). Their foster parents Couper (played by Victor Williams) and Sylvia (played by Jessica Hecht) seem to be providing a loving home for Max and Luke. They have family dinners together and seem to be very close.
Max’s flashback memories in this moment are not happy ones. He remembers the day that Luke said goodbye because Luke was going away to college. Luke tries to reassure Max by saying, “They call us foster brothers. Our bond is thicker than blood.”
Not long after this departure, Max gets devastating news from Couper and Sylvia: Luke suddenly died when he was at college. This movie is so poorly written, the cause of death is never mentioned, and Max is never shown asking how Luke died. As an adult, Max later says in the movie that his foster parents didn’t let him go to Luke’s funeral.
As an adult, Max is seen getting arrested for painting a graffiti mural on the wall of the top of a building. Part of the graffiti has this message: “Our future is burning.” It’s not the first time that Max has been arrested for graffiti vandalism.
Couper’s occupation is never stated in the movie. But apparently, he’s some kind of attorney because he talks like an attorney in a police interrogation room, where he tells Max that Max can get community service instead of jail time, in a plea deal. As part of the community service, Max has to work as a live-in superintendent at the Green Meadows Retirement Home, which is somewhere in upstate New York.
At his first day on the job, two stern Green Meadows employees named Les (played by “The Home” co-writer Cantor) and Juno (played by Mugga) give Max a brief orientation and a master key. Les and Juno tell Max that he can use the key to open any door in Green Meadows except a few hallways in the basement. Max also has to follow two basic rules at Green Meadows: (1) Always knock before opening a resident’s door and (2) Never go to the fourth floor.
Max is really a glorified janitor. As soon as he begins living at Green Meadows, he starts having nightmares, such as seeing the residents tearing off their flesh in front of him. One day, he also sees two residents (a man and a woman) having sex in a bed while wearing creepy masks. And on another occasion, a resident named Mrs. Fisher (played by Beth Dixon) begins bleeding from her face during a swimming pool exercise class.
There’s a Green Meadows medical doctor named D. W. Sabian (played by Bruce Altman), whom you know is up to no good. Green Meadows also has a resident named Lou (played by John Glover), a former theater actor who is the unofficial entertainment director for the residents. Max befriends a lonely resident named Norma (played Mary Beth Piel), who gives him mixed messages about Green Meadows until she finally warns him that it’s a dangerous place and he should leave. One day, Max hears disturbing noises on the fourth floor. And you know what that means.
The rest of “The Home” lumbers along the way most viewers can predict that it does. Davidson and the rest of the cast members don’t do anything special in their performances, although Glover does get a few genuinely harrowing scenes. Once the big secret is revealed, the movie never bothers to answer how Green Meadows has been able to keep this secret without anyone investigating. “The Home” is more gruesome than scary, but gore can’t make up for an unimaginative story with characters most people won’t care about or like.
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “The Home” in U.S. cinemas on July 25, 2025.