DVD Review: Home Movie (2009)

Now this is one creepy little gem of a flick...

Cast Members of Note- Adrian Pasdar, Cady Mcclain, Austin Williams and Amber Joy Williams.

Mom and Dad are camcorder happy; Dad is a drunk pastor who insists on taping everything that the family does, and Mom is a repressed housewife and shrink, who sucks at her job. Just look at her kids... if she knew her business at all, how could she not tell that something was just a tad off with them?

Nothing abnormal about them.

Day by day, the kids become brattier and more sassy; not talking to their parents, blowing off their chores, breaking plates, killing random animals, biting each other to try and frame Dad for abuse, nearly chewing a classmate to death... and not once do they catch an ass whipping. I know I got the wooden spoon when I was a kid just for asking "Why?" when I was told to do something. WTF is wrong with parents these days?

So you raped and beheaded the dog? Forget punishment kids, lets just talk about it!

I don't wanna say too much about the plot here, as it's a shorter movie, and I do think it will take away from things if you know too much up front. What I will say however, is that this movie proves that kids are evil, and that some parents suck at being parents.

Like her. she sucks at it.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Hand-Held movie genre; the whole premise of HH makes little sense to me, because in reality most people wouldn't be recording everything with a frigging camera while in the middle of harrowing and life threatening situations. With this kind of movie though, you really have to get over the fact that the people are taping things that normal people wouldn't tape, otherwise we'd have no movie to watch. So when done right, all plausible believability aside, these types of movies can be a great film experience.

That being said... This movie actually creeped the living shit out of me.

Seriously, this scene freaked me out.

The children's slow yet visible descent into darkness was something else to watch, and with the way it was shot, gave me goosebumps at more than a few points along the way. I also was left wondering is there was something supernatural going on in the house, though the film seemed to be about demented kids. The scene in the picture above (the window) was a huge hint that something else was wrong there besides the kids... also, the whole closet door thing.  

Adrian Pasdar has always been a fave of mine; from Near Dark to Heroes (Which I think sucks now), he just has this great screen presence that always seems to add to the quality of whatever he's in. He's married to a Dixie Chick, plays guitar, could probably bang Hayden Derriere if he wanted to... the guy is just rock n' roll! 

I totally used this pic because Hayden is in it.

I think the reason that this movie frustrates me so much isn't because it has any glaring shortcomings, but because it shows us the shortcomings of the characters so well. Turn on the news, watch your neighbors, go shopping; there are far too many people in our society that have no clue how to parent, and shouldn't be able to have kids. Even once the main characters realize their kids are "off", they don't really do anything about it.

What did the dog and cat ever do to you? Or the frogs? Or the other kids? Or your frigging parents, for that matter!

Alright, maybe he deserved to die for wearing that bunny suit.

Dead animals galore, disturbing bite marks, and a bunch of other things that were implied that were disturbing, but not very graphic.

You'll be in this bag next, Daddy.

Nope.

"It's not precious, it's weird." or "Hey honey, the shade is down." Creepy.

Kids are evil. Also... no, "kids are evil" pretty much covers it all.

Evil little fuckers.

This is a true creep-fest of a movie. If you can stomach the whole shaky camera thing, and ignore how dumb the parents are, you're in for an eerie treat. Seek it out and watch it asap.

B+

Home Movie is available now on DVD.

Get her Adrian! No way is Hayden Derriere to young for you... or me, for that matter.