Horror Film Friday: Home Movie

So today we have yet another 2 star movie. I know it doesn't appear to be so but I do love horror films.

Home Movie, Released 2008

Everyone in their upstate suburban community agrees that The Poes are the picture-perfect family: Pastor dad David, psychologist mom Clare, and the adorable 10-year-old twins Emily and Jack. But something has gone horribly wrong with the Poe children between Halloween and Easter, a grisly descent into madness and murder that David and Claire have captured on video. This found footage will reveal the shocking series of events. This is their HOME MOVIE.

Adrian Pasdar of HEROES and Cady McClain of ALL MY CHILDREN and AS THE WORLD TURNS star in this critically acclaimed and ferociously disturbing debut feature from writer/director Christopher Denham that rips open the dark side of the modern American family. You may never look at home videos the same way again...

This one gets a 2 out of 5, here's why:

A family moves into a large house, with lots of nooks and crannies (all the better to hide yourselves later), way out in the woods with nothing to see for miles but trees. I was excited and my hopes were high this wouldn’t be a dud.

Dad records every living moment of their lives on a too often shaky held hand-cam. He is a Pastor who apparently has nothing better to do with his time. But I sure as hell have better things to do than watch his boring little vignettes where he’s usually the star,awkwardly hamming it up for the camera, acting the fool, as the kids look completely uninterested and DO NOT UTTER A WORD (because that’s not weird at all). This worked for a little while, he is Adrian Pasdar of Near Dark fame (Heroes doesn't count), after all, and damn that man has aged well, but even I need more than a pretty face to keep watching.  Eventually you come to the realization that there is something off about these kids when the son beans dad hard in the head with a rock while playing a friendly game of catch in the backyard. That’s not normal. Let’s just “punish” him by doing absolutely nothing. Before long they are doing much more ominous things than a little attempted braining of goofy dad. These things usually involve animals (wish I’d know that little detail beforehand) . These “things” that they’re doing would have any sane, caring parent seeking outside help for their children.

Not these two fools. They parent by sweeping all of these bad things under the rug and going on with their day.

And, get this, the wife is a child psychiatrist of all things!

Well, she decides to diagnose them, study them and even medicate them.

This, of course, is a terrible idea. Turns out she is quite possibly the world’s worst child psychiatrist ever to breathe air.

She and Adrian realize the error of their ways far too late and make so many TSTL moves in the final scenes that they deserved every terrible thing their little kiddies decided to dish out to them. I only wish it had happened sooner because I ran out of fucks to give far before the movie ended.

The reviews on this tell me how creepy and unsettling it is but I just wasn’t feeling it. Most of the acting felt forced and unnatural. But on the positive side Adrian Pasdar still looks pretty good so I'll give it two stars instead of one.

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