I was going to let this movie come and go without writing a review for it. I figure there is so much negativity on the internet, I don’t need to add to it. But honestly, if I can save even one person the agony of the experience I had with this film, it will all have been worth it. I saw James DeMonaco’s The Home last Monday night at AMC’s Scream Unseen series. Lionsgate did not send critics in my city to this movie. If you’re unfamiliar, Scream Unseen is a thing the AMC Theaters chain does about once every other month where audiences can buy a cheap ticket to an as-of-yet unreleased horror movie, but they don’t know what it is until they’re sitting in the theater. I was expecting last Monday night’s Scream Unseen to be something else. It was The Home. And I regrettably ignored the very clear instructions presented in front of me. I should’ve gone home.

Max (Pete Davidson) is a troubled young man who keeps getting himself into trouble. After an incident, he’s sent to do community service at a nearby retirement home, and is told to never go to the fourth floor. He soon begins to find all is not right in this nursing home.

Had I gone into this movie knowing it was directed by the man who has had multiple chances to make The Purge franchise work, and still has yet to figure it out, I think I would have expected even less than I already was. The sales pitch of a horror movie headlined by Pete Davidson doesn’t really inspire much confidence, but The Home is an aggressively poorly made horror movie that gets almost everything wrong. Davidson is simply not a strong enough actor to anchor a movie like this, the pacing is awful, the jump scares almost exclusively happen in dream sequences, which cheapens their impact. This is a film with no ideas that work, nothing to say about the world we live in, and a film that only runs about 90 minutes and feels much longer. The film ramps up the energy in the last five minutes or so, and has a crazy ending. But by that point, it’s too little, too late.

Regarding Pete Davidson – the best work of his career so far was in Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island, where he was essentially playing himself. His role in The Home feels like it was written specifically for him too – a wayward 20-something who has lost his way and is, I don’t know, searching for redemption? But the way Davidson handles every moment feels off. Like he’s getting close to making a moment work but then destroys it with flat delivery or the wrong facial expression. Nothing about his performance here works, but surprisingly, that’s the least of The Home’s problems. The supporting cast, as well, fails to make an impression. Stage legend Mary Beth Peil, as a resident of the retirement home who Max bonds with, shows promise, but Peil is ultimately wasting her time here.

The worst thing a film like this can do is bore the audience, and I was checking my watch way more than I should for a movie this length. It’s never particularly interesting or scary, or even fun in a campy way. Every jump scare feels cheap and forced. But once we get to the reveal of what’s really going on here, the film’s IQ dives off a cliff. Not that this cliff was really that high to begin with. I can’t recall anything particularly memorable about the filmmaking here. We have lots of shaky cam in Anastas N. Michos’ cinematography and I found that annoying. Also, James DeMonaco has never directed a good horror film. He’s worked almost exclusively in the horror genre and literally every movie he’s made has been terrible. I question why he’s gotten so many chances at this point.

The Home premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival and is just now seeing the light of day. After having seen the film, it makes sense. This film could have been shelved forever and I don’t think any viewer of the final film would mind. This is an aggressively dull and vapid horror film that never leans into any angle that could possibly make it more interesting or fun. It could lean into the campiness and absurdity of this premise, but never knows how to thread that needle. If the film was setting the viewer up for the ridiculous turn we take in act three, all of this could feel like it works. But James DeMonaco still has no idea how to make a good horror movie, and I think at this point he’s had enough chances, and shouldn’t get this kind of opportunity again. If you feel like you absolutely must see this film, I implore you not to see it in a movie theater. We send a message to Hollywood when we choose which movies to support at the box office. And the last thing any of us needs is another movie like The Home.