97 min | R | July 25, 2025 | Lionsgate
James DeMonaco sends Pete Davidson to a haunted retirement home for mandatory community service. The premise is better than the execution.
James DeMonaco created The Purge franchise by finding horror in American policy and class warfare. The Home attempts similar work with elder care and institutional neglect. Max is a graffiti artist sentenced to community service at a retirement home. He discovers sinister secrets about the residents and the forbidden fourth floor. The premise connects to real anxieties about how society treats the elderly. The film never develops those ideas beyond surface-level creepiness.
Pete Davidson plays Max with his usual slacker energy. The role does not ask him to stretch. He wanders through the home making jokes and slowly realizing something is wrong. The character never develops beyond skeptical observer. John Glover and Bruce Altman play residents with secrets. They bring gravitas to underwritten roles. The supporting cast fills in the retirement home with characters that feel like types rather than people.
DeMonaco directs with workmanlike efficiency. The scares are functional. The atmosphere is adequately creepy. But the whole thing feels like a concept that needed more development. The mystery about what’s happening on the fourth floor is obvious from the first act. The reveals are telegraphed. The climax delivers violence without catharsis or meaning. The film runs ninety-seven minutes and still feels padded.
The social commentary about elder care and societal disposal of the old is present but never sharpened into genuine satire or horror. The film gestures at ideas without committing to them. This is a premise that could have been a smart horror film about institutional evil. What we get instead is a generic haunted house movie that happens to take place in a retirement home.