Re-envisioning The Bad Seed with Blair Witch POV gimmickry, Home Movie delivers a compilation of the Poe family’s titular footage, which increasingly comes to center on the psychotic pastimes of the clan’s twin boy and girl. Writer/director Christopher Dunn suggests all sorts of reasons for the pathologically silent kids’ actions, which start off as merely nasty (rock throwing, plate-smashing during grace) and soon morph into proto-serial killer animal mutilation. Does it stem from abuse by their father, pastor David (Adrian Pasdar)? Is it due to psychological problems that can be treated, as therapist mom Clare (Cady McClain) believes? The answer is neither, of course; the kids are just sadistic monsters whom the film – through various camera pans in which they magically appear and disappear, as well as via their satanic twin-language and references to a mysterious man in their closet – defines as demonic, and immune to exorcism to boot. Dunn expends considerable energy humanizing David and Clare, who are seen flirting and goofing around like an average happy couple, all so his story’s eventual terror will hit harder. Yet his adults are so slow on the uptake in dealing with their progeny’s insanity that they eventually elicit only embarrassed contempt. Home Movie falls flat not simply because its style is gimmicky (replete with amateurish staticy VHS-edit transitions) and its story is old-hat and rife with musty psycho-kid clichés (including a “no parents allowed” clubhouse decorated like the Gein residence), but also because its characters’ behavior eventually becomes so implausible as to be insulting.
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