Home MovieRated R
Running time: 1 hr 17 mins
Cast:
Adrian Pasdar
Cady McClain
Amber Joy Williams
Austin Williams
Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:
***1/2 out of *****
The Premise:
Documents one family's descent into darkness, using a compilation of found home-made footage. In the remote woods of upstate New York, the Poe Family lives a Norman Rockwell life. Perfect house. Perfect marriage. If only the children stopped stapling frogs to trees. Something is very wrong with ten-year old twins, Jack and Emily Poe. And, to stop them, their parents must enter the nightmare of their minds. The only question is: who will survive the night?
MY REVIEW
To view this film's trailer, click this link: Home Movie
Home Movie is an all hand held camera film. The whole film is shot like...a home movie. Yes we have seen a slew of these types of movies in the recent year, but this film actually uses the camera effect in a very cool way. We see snippets of events in this families life over the course of a few months, mainly major holidays. The pastor father played by "Heroes" star Adrian Pasdar and the child therapist mother played by Cady McClain documents as much of the families life as possible. Now for the first half of the film, this family seems very happy and quite normal. Despite the children (Amber Joy Williams and Austin Williams)being very quiet and standoffish. We see the mother shooting video for patient purposes and the father filming himself practice sermons. All is well.
The second half things take a turn for the worse. The children start acting a little sinister. They kill their fish and put it in a sandwich. They crucify the family cat. They throw their plates of food on the ground on Thanksgiving while the father tries to pray. The mother begins to suspect they may have some mental illness and tries to treat them. The father things there is evil in the house and tries to perform and exorcism. Nothing works.
Home Movie is a very well made psychological horror film. I hate to even use the word horror to describe the film's genre. Because there is no blood or gore. There are no jump scenes. There are no moments of evil torture. This film is purely a trick on the mind. It glorifies the phrase "what you don't see is what scares you the most". Not literally per say, although those creepy little kids do some sneaky and unsettling things behind the camera that we don't see. What I mean is we don't see evil in these kids, and neither do the parents at first. We all see two shy, quiet kids who may be a bit socially awkward. Then it all flips.
This movie isn't amazing, but I thought it was very well executed and it was the perfect length and just under an hour and twenty minutes. Just enough time to show the rapid growth in fear and evil in that house. We never know what triggers these kids. We never find out if they are possessed or just insane. That's not the point. A lot of the times kids do crazy things in real life and we never know why. Heck recently in Phoenix an 8 year old shot and killed his father and his roommate. Kids that age don't have the mentality to plan these things like an adult would. They just...go crazy sometimes. And sometimes it's because of their home life. In this case, these kids had a very good home life, with very loving parents. Which makes this story even creepier.
The movie is currently playing on Cox On Demand under "New Releases" and then I think the "In Theaters" option. Or something close to that. I believe it is on other cable on demand networks as well. The movie is qualifying as a normal released film for my review purposes because it is playing in some independent theaters in the country. If you are into unsettling creep fests, I would check out Home Movie if you can. It works very well in my opinion. Very creepy "horror" flick.
The second half things take a turn for the worse. The children start acting a little sinister. They kill their fish and put it in a sandwich. They crucify the family cat. They throw their plates of food on the ground on Thanksgiving while the father tries to pray. The mother begins to suspect they may have some mental illness and tries to treat them. The father things there is evil in the house and tries to perform and exorcism. Nothing works.
Home Movie is a very well made psychological horror film. I hate to even use the word horror to describe the film's genre. Because there is no blood or gore. There are no jump scenes. There are no moments of evil torture. This film is purely a trick on the mind. It glorifies the phrase "what you don't see is what scares you the most". Not literally per say, although those creepy little kids do some sneaky and unsettling things behind the camera that we don't see. What I mean is we don't see evil in these kids, and neither do the parents at first. We all see two shy, quiet kids who may be a bit socially awkward. Then it all flips.
This movie isn't amazing, but I thought it was very well executed and it was the perfect length and just under an hour and twenty minutes. Just enough time to show the rapid growth in fear and evil in that house. We never know what triggers these kids. We never find out if they are possessed or just insane. That's not the point. A lot of the times kids do crazy things in real life and we never know why. Heck recently in Phoenix an 8 year old shot and killed his father and his roommate. Kids that age don't have the mentality to plan these things like an adult would. They just...go crazy sometimes. And sometimes it's because of their home life. In this case, these kids had a very good home life, with very loving parents. Which makes this story even creepier.
The movie is currently playing on Cox On Demand under "New Releases" and then I think the "In Theaters" option. Or something close to that. I believe it is on other cable on demand networks as well. The movie is qualifying as a normal released film for my review purposes because it is playing in some independent theaters in the country. If you are into unsettling creep fests, I would check out Home Movie if you can. It works very well in my opinion. Very creepy "horror" flick.
*This is the 151st new film I've seen and reviewed this year.
*This film was featured in select independent theaters across the country and is available on Cox On Demand and Direct TV until December 31st 2008.
Nice review & it's a nice movie too...
ReplyDeleteHi! Well thank you for your feedback!! I like finding the movies no one has ever heard of!
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