The Home Director Confirms Terror Never Dies in His New Thriller

For all intents and purposes, retirement communities are expected to be calm and peaceful places where residents can enjoy their lives as comfortably as possible. In the all-new horror movie The Home, however, a new staff member experiences the exact opposite feelings, as the more time he spends there, the more time he feels anxiety and unease, as he slowly unravels frightening machinations at this facility. From filmmaker James DeMonaco, The Home marks quite a different experience from the terror of his The Purge franchise, which includes Pete Davidson taking on a much more dramatic role for the outing. The Home lands in theaters on July 25th.

The Home is described, “In this horror thriller from the creator of The Purge, a rebellious twentysomething is sentenced to community service at a quiet retirement home. The residents on the fourth floor are strictly off-limits, said to require ‘special care.’ As his suspicions grow and he digs deeper, he uncovers a chilling secret that puts both the residents’ lives and his own in grave danger.”

ComicBook caught up with DeMonaco to talk his new movie, the experience of living in the actual shooting locations, and more.

ComicBook: With The Home and with some of your other movies, you’re no stranger to including allegories to societal fears, concerns, and worries. How do you find that balance between trying to deliver a straightforward, entertaining, thrilling story, while also including those themes and not shying away from that stuff?

James DeMonaco: The word “balance” is key. You never want to preach, you never want to really proselytize to the audience, I think they get mad. Understandably, I would get mad too. I grew up watching John Carpenter and George Romero, who were always layering some socio-political commentary. And my producer, Sébastien K. Lemercier, grew up on the same films, and we like this idea of — [Martin] Scorsese called it “smuggler’s cinema,” where you smuggle some ideas into a genre piece. I think genre pieces are the best ones, because you can smuggle them in without hitting people over the head with the message.

So here I was trying to make some commentary on climate change. There was a great metaphor for climate change within the movie. We’re trying to make a metaphor for climate change, and I think it’s, like you said, first and foremost, it’s got to be an entertaining horror film; thrilling, bloody twists, all that fun stuff that I think I expect from horror films and thrillers. But then, if some people want to see that secondary level, I think it’s there, but if they don’t want to see it, that’s fine, too. Maybe it’ll spark some people talking, but it’s fun … I think, for me as a filmmaker, to play with the layers of things.

When you develop these movies, including The Home, do you keep that message in your mind the whole time and then, when you get to the end, realize, “I think I might’ve gone a little too heavy with the social commentary,” or do you just put it out there and whatever people take away from it is what they take away from it?

It’s a great question in that I don’t want to be heavy-handed, so I’m aware, I’ll layer it in with the hope that in editing, we can always dial it up or dial it down. We were using a lot of TV screens to throw some imagery in here, and messaging, so we were able to change — we could change those in post if they’re too far, if I’m starting to preach.

Listen, on The Purge films, I think maybe I did cross the line a little bit at certain points into maybe too much commentary. I think there is a fine line, you don’t want to preach. It’s the last thing I think anybody wants to hear, is James DeMonaco telling them what to think. It’s more about presenting something and making them talk about it instead of me being super preachy or proselytizing.

Pete is fantastic in this film and obviously he’s known for his more comedic efforts. This one, he gets to be much more straightforward in a dramatic, thrilling, physical role. Even though you have a relationship with Pete that goes back years, what surprised you most about what he brought to this role in that, you knew he would crush it, but you still couldn’t prepare yourself for what he brought?

Dude, I think you nailed it. I knew he would crush it. I knew he had it because I knew him before. I knew pre-celebrity Pete, and I knew he was a very soulful guy. So I’m like, “Oh, Pete could do it.” Even if there were some doubters from the power side of things, like, “Oh, could he do it?” I’m like, “No, I know he can do it.” But I was even surprised.

I remember turning to his mother once on set, saying, “I didn’t know he was this good.” I didn’t know he could work with trained, veteran, theater actors, some Shakespearean trained, multiple Tony winners — John Glover, Mary Beth Peil, Ethan Phillips, Stuart Rudin. I mean, these are wonderful — Stuart Rudin was in Jonathan Demme’s Experimental Theater Company, so these are trained, seasoned people. Bruce Altman — just right next to him, [Davidson] would effortlessly work his way into this theater community of amazing, seasoned actors and not blink an eye.

He’s an incredibly fearless, young man. I work off phobias and fears. I wish I was more like Pete. He’s just fearless, and it’s wonderful to see someone who could just dive in and play with these older actors.

This filming experience was different from some of your other projects where chunks of the cast and crew were staying in the location where you were filming. Did that have an impact on how the film played out, actually spending nights in this place?

It was strange, man. We were living at this place. It became our home. It was inherently strange. I swear it was haunted. I know people might think I’m crazy, but I do believe that there’s a lot we don’t know going on out there. There were strange things happening in this place. I think us staying there for these long hours overnight, it began to infuse us with … I think that one of the things a filmmaker has to do is get everybody on the same page to feel, to start, so that the intention of what I want for the movie … because I’m servicing the movie. I always say, “I’m servicing the movie.”

We all need to feel the same thing and be on the same page on what tone we’re bringing. I play a lot of music on set. I was playing early Pink Floyd. I was playing Darryl Busby’s score from Three Women, but I do believe that, more than that, and more than me talking all the time and saying what it needed to be, I think staying there and feeling this odd sense of dread — because there was something ominous about being in a place where, to be honest, it was open for over a hundred years. They used to have plaques and pictures of all the people who died in each room.

There was a sense of death, there was something morbid. In a good way, there was a sense of something else going on here. I think that infused the entire crew with the tone that we needed to make this creepy, psychological horror.

I’m sure that also reframed how you all approached the project, with more respect for the legacy of the people who lived there and not just, “Hey, let’s do a cheap haunted house thing.” That was the last place that a lot of people lived.

Yeah, absolutely, and they knocked it down, so it really was like … our movie will be the last, standing document of Green Meadows. I call it Green Meadows, but I think it was called St. Anne’s. We were the last standing document, visually, of what this place was like. Hopefully, some of their spirits feel like they got into the DNA of the film. So hopefully it’s a nice ode to everybody who lived there.

You collaborated with Pete on this, I hear that he was pitching a comedic take on The Purge. Since we already got the TV show, could you see The Purge expanding into something that maybe leans much more into the satire?

So Pete and his writing partner wrote a great — to this day, I stand by, it was a hilarious version of Purge. Because what they did, which was very smart, they kept it both scary and they added humor, so it still had the threat factor, but they added Pete and his friends in the movie.

I tried to push it through to the powers that be, and there was some resistance, I’ll say. I’m hoping that — I think they want to do a couple more, I’m thinking we’ll do a couple more, straightforward. But then I’m hoping to finally get to Pete’s version, because it’s so funny. I do want them to see it, but the powers that be weren’t open to the comedic version, not yet. I think we can get them there.

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The Home hits theaters on July 25th.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or Instagram.