In this retirement home horror, Pete Davidson plays Max, a graffiti artist who must work in a plush-yet-spooky facility as part of his community service. This deal is worked out by his foster father as a last-ditch effort to keep him out of prison; he’s been spiralling towards the drain since the death of his older foster brother, who apparently killed himself, and whose memory haunts Max’s dreams.
You don’t cast Davidson for his everyman qualities as he’s not quite your average Joe; he’s much more plausible as, say, a TikTok star or a charismatic drug dealer. He’s also become something of an avatar for youth, one of those thirtysomethings that can credibly evoke the sensibilities of those more than 10 years his junior. It makes sense, then, to see him in this role as the one relatively young person at the retirement home, grumbling: “Best generation my fucking dick … fucking boomers.”
Regrettably, though, The Home doesn’t have the requisite spark or internal logic needed to really tick along to a satisfying conclusion. It has plenty of would-be arresting imagery and icky scares, many of which rely on a physical gerontophobia not unusual in horror films, wherein the spectacle of age itself is held to be inherently revolting. Moreover, as a theme, ageing offers some wide-open horror goals for a society in which politicians in their 70s and 80s mire future generations in inequality, the climate crisis and war. The Home, though, is more interested in a cool kill shot and can’t quite decide if the condition of being old lends itself more to creating monsters or victims.
This may have been pitched as “Get Out but with age” (and there’s a final 10-minute sequence that was worth signing up for alone), but there’s none of the consistency of vision or theme achieved by Jordan Peele’s modern horror classic.
• The Home is on digital platforms from 22 August
