Pete Davidson’s turn in The Home marks a bold venture into horror that is equal parts intriguing and frustrating—a film with flashes of audacious ideas surrounded by a haze of narrative muddiness and uneven execution. Davidson plays Max, a brooding graffiti artist who finds himself doing court-mandated community service at a retirement home. The day he starts, he’s told never to set foot on the fourth floor—a rule so intriguing Max can’t resist pushing it, unleashing a cascade of supernatural mystery, gruesome visuals, and cultish conspiracy.
The film’s atmosphere—or at least its attempts at atmosphere—are vivid and memorable. Green Meadows Retirement Home feels ripe for a horror setting, and director James DeMonaco capitalizes on that. Twisted residents, eerie medical oddities, and hallways that echo with sinister whispers form the backbone of an unsettling backdrop. The cinematography works hard to establish that mood: stark, sterile lighting, close-ups of aged, disfigured faces, and quieter spaces where fear festers in silence. There’s an old-school dread crawling through every frame, but it’s often undercut by clear reliance on tropes without the narrative weight to support them.
Davidson’s performance is a struggle. When he’s required simply to look edgy or uninterested, the actor can handle it; he nails the disillusioned, reluctant worker vibe. But when the script calls for emotional connection, terror, or desperation, Davidson’s instincts feel misaligned. There’s a disconnect between the urgency the role demands and the lethargic tone Davidson opts for. At times, his muted reactions come off as comedic, even when the horrors around him are anything but funny.
It’s possible, though, to see Davidson’s discomfort as something deliberate—his own unease seeping into Max’s character. The lines between performance and persona blur, creating a performance that feels more passive than terrified. And yet, in moments when things ramp up—especially during the film’s final ten minutes—Davidson springs to life, propelled by carnage and chaos that suddenly realign with the genre’s intensity.
Those final ten minutes are the movie’s most memorable. Shenanigans that feel drawn from absurdist horror comedies—blood, eye fluid cults, unexpected revelations, twisted rituals—arrive like a tsunami crashing through the earlier monotony. The film’s otherwise sluggish first two-thirds suddenly give way to a manic, hallucinatory rally that redefines the buildup. It’s over-the-top, gory, and nearly enjoyable for the sheer audacity, yet it also reveals how appealing the film’s conclusion is by contrast with its earlier tone-deaf pacing.
The narrative itself flips between earnest horror and campy schlock. Once Max discovers that the fourth floor residents are being harvested for fluid to prolong life, and that his foster brother’s death was a staged ruse, the story collapses into cult horror clichés—shocking and bizarre, but also incoherent. It’s hard to care about the big picture implications when the path to them feels more convoluted than compelling. Many characters exist as bizarre set dressing rather than people with stakes. Only a handful of performances—like that of John Glover in a supporting role—offer any charisma amid the mayhem.
It’s hard to judge whether The Home works because it’s dangerous or because it’s dumb. It’s too limp for most horror fans but almost deliriously energetic in its conclusion. A Reddit viewer put it bluntly: Pete Davidson’s performance is “so comically bad” that the film might have succeeded better as horror-comedy. That may not be far off.
Ultimately, The Home is a genre experiment that never quite coheres. It’s part haunted institution, part eye-harvesting cult, part supernatural conspiracy—but rarely human or compelling. Davidson’s dramatic struggle feels real, if misplaced, giving the film a curious kind of authenticity even when it fails to shock or move. If you appreciate B-movie oddities and a finale that swings for shock value, there’s something here to latch onto. But if you’re looking for suspense, narrative clarity, or convincing performances, The Home offers more frustration than fright.
