Movie Review - Home Movie

Home Movie


Found footage horror movies are becoming ever more popular, with underground hits like 'The Blair Witch Project' kicking off their popularity in the 90s to the recent big budget 'Cloverfield.' Its tough not to compare Denham's 'Home Movie' to [Rec] not only because they both screened at Fantasia but also because they operate in very similar ways. Both come from a 'hand cam' perspective, and both slowly bubble and brew with tension leading up to a gruesome climax at the end of the film. Despite these similarities however, I'll refrain from comparing the two as it would detract from all of the nuanced details that 'Home Movie' had to offer. That, and if this was a contest, [Rec] would simply ruin it.


'Home Movie' begins with a very interesting concept, the Poe family, which consists of David (a pastor), his wife Claire (a psychologist), and their twins Jack and Emily move to a cottage where David proudly films his children during their holiday moments. The problem is, his children are by-the-book psychopaths and the movie is filled with haunting scenes of frogs crushed in vice clamps, and crucified household pets. To keep the movie realistic these shocking scenes last for less than a second on screen as David quickly turns the camera away and begins to scold his children. While this works well to ensure that the movie seems authentic (who would actually film a crucified cat?), it works very poorly in terms of a scary movie experience. The horror scenes of the film are so short that if you blink for a second, you'll have missed all the juicy bits.

Ironically, while the filmmakers try to maintain a degree of realism in the film in terms of the character's reaction to the children, they relax on other elements. For example, the twins move so perfectly silently that they can be in one room in one shot and appear right behind their father the next second. While this works well for the horror element of the movie, it leaves the audience saying 'how the hell did that just happened?' and while movie tries to balance 'realism' and shock horror together, it falls apart as it laxly meanders between the two.


The film isn't terrible though, and the premise is still pretty clever as the parents who slowly come to realize their kids are actually devil children (and not just snottly little brats) each go about curing them in their own way. David turns to religion as he attempts to exorcise the two while his wife turns to science and prescribes them heavy duty drugs. Near the end of the movie Jack and Emily actually even seem cured are we are asked to wonder which of the two 'saved' the children.


But in the end, neither worked and the kids prove to be not only more devious than their parents realized, but much much more malicious. While the overall idea of the film is good, the inattention to detail and lack of any real 'scare' make it a mediocre watching. Chatting with people at Fantasia over the next few weeks, it seems I'm not the only person who came out of the theatre with a lackluster sense of satisfaction or entertainment.