JP Nunez
I’m a big fan of creepy kids. I know, that trope has been done to death over the years, but when it’s done well, I think it still makes for some of the best horror you’ll ever see. So when I saw the trailer for Homebound, I was instantly hooked. Not only did it promise a bunch of really creepy kids, but it also looked like a captivating mystery. In fact, it looked like an almost perfect blend of those two classic tropes, so I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into this intriguing new movie.
Homebound was written and directed by Sebastian Godwin, and it stars Aisling Loftus, Tom Goodman-Hill, Hattie Gotobed, Raffiella Chapman, and Lukas Rolfe. It’s about Richard and Holly, a newlywed couple who go to spend some time with Richard’s estranged family, but when they arrive, something isn’t right. Richard’s ex-wife Nina is nowhere to be found, and the kids are all acting in really strange ways.
On paper, that sounds like a great premise for a horror movie, but unfortunately, Homebound really drops the ball in its execution. To begin, the characters aren’t all that interesting. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad, so I didn’t particularly dislike them, but they just didn’t grab me the way I expected them to.
And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure why. All the pieces seemed to be there, so it’s tough to explain why I didn’t like them. The performances were all pretty good, they felt like real people rather than actors reading lines, and I bought into just about everything they said and did, but somehow those pieces didn’t come together as a satisfying whole. I just never enjoyed seeing these characters on screen, so after a while, the movie became a bit of a chore to watch.
Along similar lines, the mystery in Homebound is also pretty lackluster. In particular, the strange things that happen don’t seem to have any sort of inner coherence. It’s almost like the filmmakers threw a bunch of random stuff into the script and hoped it would create a general feeling of disorientation and confusion, but to me, it just felt haphazard and disjointed.
For example, at one point, I thought the kids did something to their mother, then later on I thought Richard and the kids were in cahoots, and then at another point I thought Richard was going to end up being the only villain. Now, on paper, that may sound like a really captivating mystery with a bunch of intriguing twists and turns that keep you guessing the whole way through, but much like with the characters, those pieces just didn’t come together as a whole. Like I said, it came across as disjointed, so it felt like the story kept changing its focus because it didn’t know what it really wanted to be.
And I felt pretty much the same exact way about the horror in Homebound too. Since it’s a mystery, it’s more about mood and atmosphere than jump scares and creepy imagery, and I usually love that kind of horror. But again, something about it just didn’t work here, and I’m not entirely sure why. In fact, if I were to describe some of the scenes that were supposed to be creepy, you’d probably think they sounded great, but the execution just fell really flat.
To take one example, there’s a scene where one of the kids buries a doll in a graveyard and tells herself not to cry, and on paper, that sounds quite chilling. Burying things is often pretty creepy, dolls are almost always a bit eerie, and graveyards are inherently spooky, so the scene has everything it needs to be great. But when I watched it, I didn’t feel anything. In fact, I even thought to myself that it should be a very atmospheric scene, but for some reason it just wasn’t. It simply didn’t elicit much of anything from me, and the rest of the horror in Homebound was just as ineffective.
The only exception is the very last scene. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I will say that the film reveals its secret in a really cool way. It’s subtle, just like the rest of the movie, so it doesn’t go all out the way some other films do. Instead, it takes an almost Lovecraftian approach, pulling back the curtain just enough so you can figure out what’s going on, but also keeping enough hidden that there’s still a sizable mystery left. It’s hands down the best part of the movie, so as much as I didn’t like the rest of it, I have to say that it ended on a pretty good note.
But unfortunately, that was far too little, far too late. It wasn’t nearly enough to save the film, so on the whole, I’m sad to say that I can’t recommend Homebound. While the pieces all seem to be there, they just never come together in a satisfying way. It felt like the movie was always on the cusp of turning a corner and becoming really good, but it never got there. Instead, the characters, the mystery, and the horror were pretty lackluster from beginning to end (except for that final scene, of course), so if you’re looking for some good new horror to watch, I’d recommend checking out something else instead.
Homebound comes out on VOD and in select theaters on May 13.
