With The Home, director James DeMonaco (best known for The Purge franchise) trades large-scale dystopian chaos for something more intimate and unsettling: a haunted retirement facility crawling with generational resentment, body horror, and dark institutional secrets. And yes, Pete Davidson is our reluctant guide.
Davidson plays Max, a troubled young man with a past in foster care who is sentenced to community service at Green Meadows, a retirement home that’s as charming as it is creepy. At first glance, it’s an oddball fish-out-of-water setup, but DeMonaco isn’t interested in just another quirky redemption arc. Beneath the glossy veneer of the home’s flowered curtains and old-lady charm lies a brutal fourth floor—one that hides grotesque secrets and trauma-infused science experiments, all leading toward a deranged third act that’s as gonzo as it is oddly satisfying.
The film moves slowly at first—almost frustratingly so. The first 45 minutes teeter on the edge of tedium, but scattered breadcrumbs (and a few jarringly surreal visuals, including a grotesque woman speaking through a glitchy webcam like a Nintendo 64 fever dream) promise something stranger is coming. And it does.
When The Home kicks into gear, it barrels headfirst into horror absurdity: masked elderly sex rituals, graphic surgical horrors, unhinged fight scenes (one echoing Oldboy’s hallway carnage), and a finale so gloriously over-the-top it feels like a different movie altogether. It’s preposterous—but purposefully so. The film’s third act doesn't just shift tone; it explodes.
Practical effects and makeup work are standouts here. From a fence impalement so detailed it might ruin your next trip past a garden gate, to bodies that quite literally fall apart, the film rivals high-budget gorefests. There’s a grimy, “gross-out” delight in just how far the visuals go—and how well they’re executed. Major credit goes to prosthetics designer Joshua Turi for the stomach-churning yet oddly beautiful craft.
Davidson—whether you love or love to hate him—acquits himself well. His performance as Max is grounded, sardonic, and vulnerable in the right ways. While the script leans heavily on tropes of childhood trauma and generational betrayal, Davidson finds an earnest center in the chaos. It helps that DeMonaco, who’s known Davidson since he was a teenager, wrote the part with him in mind. It's a smart bit of casting, and a reminder that Davidson’s horror fandom translates into genuine onscreen investment.
The supporting cast of stage veterans and character actors—including Mary Beth Peil and John Glover—elevate the material with gravitas and emotional clarity. Their presence adds dimension to the central theme: that the systems meant to protect us often age into cruelty. It's Get Out meets The Stepford Wives, if those films had more doilies and a deeply sarcastic Staten Island edge.
Thematically, The Home winks at climate anxiety, the failures of the foster system, and that now-familiar cultural punchline: "The boomers ruined everything." Some of these threads land more clearly than others, but the film's willingness to try to inject real-world metaphor into midnight-movie madness is admirable.
Ultimately, The Home is a film best enjoyed with your expectations set low and your curiosity dialed high. It’s camp, it’s chaos, it’s deeply unpleasant in parts—and glorious because of it. You might not rush to see it during the crowded summer season, but it’s a perfect pick for late-night streaming, especially if you're in the mood to laugh, scream, and maybe gag a little.
Jessie Hobson