“The Purge” series writer and director James DeMonaco has never shied away from political themes in his movies. But he had a whopper of an idea that led to his latest film, “The Home,” which he directed and co-wrote with Adam Cantor.
“This generation being raped by previous generations coalesced into this idea of this old age community that wasn’t what it seemed,” he says.
In the film, Pete Davidson plays Max, a rough but kind-hearted young man sentenced to community service at a retirement home. But he quickly learns that the residents — played by veteran actors like John Glover and Bruce Altman — and the facility itself hold some dark and deadly secrets.
Needless to say, DeMonaco says this horror movie ultimately underscores tension between generations.
“There is this underlying theme in the film about how the previous generations are now robbing this generation of many resources on the planet, and it seemed fitting to do it in an old age community,” he says. “I always found in movies that old people are quite often depicted as cute and cuddly and nice, and I always found that to be not always true. If you’re an asshole when you’re young, you’ll probably grow up to be an elder asshole.”
Pete Davidson and James DeMonaco filming “The Home.”
David Giesbrecht
As for the best actor to represent the younger generation, DeMonaco immediately thought of Davidson, his old friend and fellow Staten Island native. The pair met when Davidson was a waiter at Nucci’s, a local Italian spot, and would talk with DeMonaco, who had just made the first “Purge,” about the entertainment business.
The two remained friends, including frequent writing sessions where DeMonaco would walk down the street to Davidson’s mother’s house so they could bounce ideas off each other.
“When Adam and I wrote ‘The Home,’ we wrote it for Pete,” he says. “Knowing Pete as a human, not just as a celebrity, we knew he was a very soulful man who could do more than just comedy, which I think he showed in ‘King of Staten Island,’ which came out during COVID, and ‘Big Time Adolescence,’ which he’s got some nice beats in. We just knew Pete was right for his world. Pete represents the generation of now, the younger generation. So it felt right pairing him against the John Glover generation, the Boomer generation. There was something generational about Pete — he represented something that I thought was important when this war between the generations happened.”
Despite the tense script, Davidson’s humor, which he’s cultivated through stand-up and years on “Saturday Night Live,” would frequently shine through while filming.
“I wanted it completely straight,” DeMonaco says. “Pete was like, ‘JD, let’s do one take where I’m funny.’ So we’d always do one where he was riffing with some of the older actors, and it was very funny. We tried it in editing. We always have that one take readily available to try to push the humor, but it seemed to break tone. If we went too far, it always felt like we were pushing it almost into sketch world, so that was the fine line.”
Ultimately, despite the themes explored, DeMonaco was focused on making “The Home” stand on its own as a scary movie with big twists and turns. If it makes the audience think, all the better.
“I try to layer my movies without being preachy or proselytizing with some social-political content,” he says. “I think I pushed it too far in certain movies, to be quite honest. In certain ‘Purge’ movies, my hatred for certain things might have snuck too far into the narrative. Understandably, I don’t think audiences want to be preached to by some fucking guy from Staten Island.”
Watch the trailer for “The Home” below.
