[yasr_overall_rating]
“Home” takes place over the first two days at the strange house, as Carrie’s new parents leave for a business trip and she must now take care of her step sister. As creepy occurrences lead to full blown terror, Carrie must learn to overcome her own fears and believes to save her little sister.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
All houses, big or small, have a certain history — a history left by the families that have come and gone, that have made a house their home. Some homes have one story, created by one family. Others have a perpetual history held by many families. In Frank Lin’s “Home,” we follow our protagonist, Carrie (Kerri Knuppe), a religious fundamentalist who recently moved back in with her mother, Heather (Heather Langenkamp). Carrie’s mother and father are divorced, and she has lived with her father since. When her father abandons her for India, Carrie is forced to share a home with her mother, Samantha “Sam” (Samantha Mumba), Heather’s new wife, and her young daughter, Tia (Alessandra Shelby Farmer). We find this new family moving in to the home of the recently deceased “Old Man Roberts.”
The cast does a superb job of presenting Director Frank Lin’s vision of originality (Lin also co-wrote the screenplay) and his unapologetic ideals of today’s modern family. Each member struggles with the challenge of gaining closeness as a family. There is Carrie, a young, white woman who wears a cross around her neck at all times, sleeps with her bible and has great difficulty adjusting to her mother’s new lesbian relationship. Kerri Knuppe is exceptional as Carrie. Her performance captures the audience’s attention and despite her extreme religious beliefs — which could easily make one tune her out — has you rooting for her until the very end. The choices made for her character give a performance that feels real, is effortless and great. Carrie’s mother has recently come out as a lesbian and is working to reconcile her past life with Carrie and her new life with Sam. Sam is an African-American woman and atheist who does not adapt well to Carrie’s open faith and prayers. Heather Langenkamp and Samantha Mumba deliver great performances. Both are very strong actors that compliment one another. They do well to show the struggles of the new lesbian couple in a seemingly conservative neighborhood that are stared at like “unicorns,” as they are referred to by a neighbor. You believe in their love and relationship, and want them to work despite the challenging changes they work to adapt to.
Heather and Sam buy the house “as-is” that still has the belongings of Old Man Roberts before he passed away. Remnants of the previous tenant’s life are seen in stacked piles still around the house (I thought this a nice touch). Sifting through the Old Man’s belongings reveal a disturbing past as the family finds old Victorian death photos, an old ventriloquist dummy (Roberts’ apparent only friend), and a creepy self-portrait of Roberts and the dummy that mysteriously shows up on the living room wall no matter how many times it is taken down.
The house, accompanied by the soundtrack of the film are both character, cast, and crew all within themselves. Dauntingly dark, morosely moody, and strangely superfluous, composer Christopher Wong does well with his unique music-style to appropriate the correct number of jump scares and tension-heighteners. We slowly discover the dimly-lit corners, passageways, and secrets of the house right along with the other characters. Sadly, the foreboding music is all that keeps you tuned and in suspense. The plot takes a staggering amount of time to expose itself. Heather and Sam, who own some business venture together, leave Carrie and Tia at home and go on a business trip. By the halfway mark of the film, there is no reveal, hint or tell of what could be haunting or not haunting the family. There are some of the typical types of strange “happenings” of a possessed house: objects falling, glass shattering, trinkets disappearing, floors and roofs creaking, etc., that could either be the doings of a non-human entity or the hijinks of the young and rambunctious Tia. The audience is still unsure at this point.
Aaron (Aaron Hill) joins the cast as an old friend of Carrie. She invites him to the house to keep her company while her mother and Sam are away. An exorcism is performed by the two of them and awakens whatever spirit or demon in the house. Hill provides a great performance during his very short appearance in the film. His panic and confusion help to add to a sense of fear that is mostly absent during the film.
Eventually, and after much screaming, chasing, and running through the home, it is finally revealed that the ghost taunting Carrie was that of Tia. She unknowingly died the day before in an accident on the school playground. This was a disappointing reveal; the misdirection was a bit much. The tension built surrounding the spirits or demons left by the previous home owner vanished at Tia’s unnecessary death, leaving all other “happenings” in the house unaccounted for. We never really know what, if anything, was in the house before Tia’s accident, and if this ‘thing’ influenced her own ghost or spirit to come back even after her own death. It just leaves you guessing…
Available now on DVD & Video On Demand
