PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Now in theaters from Lionsgate and director James DeMonaco (The Purge: Anarchy) is a new thriller: The Home. The film stars Pete Davidson (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies), John Glover (You Bury Your Own), and Bruce Altman (Last Seen Alive).
We had a chance recently to sit down with DeMonaco to talk about the film. But first? The trailer!
PopHorror: All right. Hi, James. How are you doing today?
James DeMonaco: Good, how are you doing, AJ?
PopHorror: Doing good. Thank you for having me on today. So, how did the collaboration between you and Adam begin for The Home?
James DeMonaco: So the collaboration began during COVID, my friend. Adam and I’s families were in… He’s my best friend, and his family, we were in a bubble or a pod. They would call it that during COVID. His two sons, well, they play with my daughter, so we felt that we were two good families. We only saw each other, his family and I, and my family.
So he’s a film fanatic, as am I. He’s a writer, as am I. So we would sit in my yard, and we’re both very neurotic people. We always think we’re dying, so COVID really put us in a highly sensitive, neurotic state of fear. And we just started talking, and there was a lot of strange things happening at the elder care facilities in New York. I don’t know if you remember in the early stages of COVID where there was a lot of elderly people dying.
So we started talking about elder care facilities. We both had strange experiences at elder care facilities in our youth with our aunts and uncles that kind of stayed with us. Simultaneously, my wife wanted me to get healthy because I eat and drink not very healthy. She’s like, “I need you to be healthy and limber as you get older.” And she convinced me to start yoga.
And so I started going online on YouTube doing yoga, and my YouTube feed began to get inundated with longevity videos about how to live longer and supplements and oils, and how you can live… And I saw that there was this underground obsession with longevity, or this new kind of fad that was going on, which I think has bloomed over the years since we’ve written it. Now, I hear billionaires talking that we can all live to 130 if we listen to AI and what AI is going to teach us.
So I think at the time Adam and I were talking, I saw all these YouTube videos. We were talking about elder care facilities. I’ve always had a passion for climate change and what it’s doing to the planet. And I think these three ideas coalesced into this horror film of a elderly care facility that was kind of a metaphor for climate change, and how previous generations are hurting the planet, and what the elder folk are doing to a population. And I don’t want to give away the twist, but what they’re doing to some people in The Home.
PopHorror: And this movie reminded me of the psychological thrillers that we would get from the ’60s and ’70s, like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death. Maybe not like the storyline, but the dread was there. The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, and the Ava Gardner movie that escapes me right now.
James DeMonaco: Oh, the Burnt Offering. Oh no, The Sentinel. The Sentinel, my friend.
PopHorror: Yeah, The Sentinel.
James DeMonaco: That’s one of my favorites.
PopHorror: So did any of those help build this atmosphere that you had for the film?
James DeMonaco: I’m doing another podcast, not to reference another one, where they asked for my top 10 films that influenced The Home, and you named three of them, Rosemary’s Baby, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Sentinel, The Tenant, all those great psychological horror films of the ’70s. That’s what I grew up on. That’s what I still watch.
You’re a fan, so you’d notice those movies used to use the zoom lens beautifully. And then the zoom lens kind of went away, so my cinematographer and I, we said, “Let’s bring back the zoom.” It’s this great dread-inducing lens. It’s better than a dolly, I think, in inducing dread because you lose a little perspective with it.
And we brought back the zoom, and this was all an ode to what I grew up on, what gave me nightmares that… I was plagued with nightmares as a child. I had night terrors my whole life to this day. And I think it all came from Let’s Scare Jessica. I love that you bring up, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, was one of my sister and It’s a beautiful film of atmosphere that more people need to see and recognize. And The Sentinel, too. The Sentinel, there’s an image of Jeff Studman, I think his name, the older actor who’s kind of wandering around and he’s half naked, and he wanders by the camera at some point. And that was a direct inspiration for the man on the fourth floor in The Home. So, oh man, AJ, you get it. You get it more than anyone. Saw all the correlations. Yeah.
PopHorror: And the casting for this, getting somebody like Pete Davidson, who knows it. This is no comic relief, very psychological. How was it building around him for The Home?
James DeMonaco: It was fantastic. I knew Pete from the neighborhood here. We both grew up on Staten Island, as did Adam, my co-writer. So we kind of knew each other. I knew Pete, free celebrity Pete when he was 16. We met at an Italian restaurant nearby, and I’d wrote and directed The Purge, and he came over to me as just a young man saying he was a fan. So we stayed in touch.
And I knew Pete as a non-comedian, just as a young man. He wanted to do comedy, but he wanted to act too, drama. And so I saw a very soulful young man who experienced some tragedy in his life with his dad passing at 9/11. So when we wrote the script, we knew there was some parallel between Max’s grief and what Pete went through in his life, and they both processed their grief through art. Max is a graffiti artist. Pete’s a stand-up comedian, he’s an actor.
So when we gave the script to Pete, I think Pete identified with Max in a way. And he also, he relished the opportunity to play the straight man in a strange way. There’s a couple of hints of humor, but very minimal. And I think he impressed everyone. I think there was some doubters at first who were like, “Can Pete do this?” I always knew he could, but I think on set, he quickly showed everyone that he can do this.
And he was working with Shakespearean-trained, theater-trained actors, and he just effortlessly started working with them every day, rehearsing, working. I mean guys like John Glover, Ethan Johnny Phillips, these are award-winning actors, Bruce Altman. So yeah, and Pete did it. So I think we were all really impressed.
PopHorror: And one final question for you, without giving too much away, how was it when you guys came up with that ending? Because that ending is a chef’s kiss, if I may say so myself. So, I just want to know, when you take that big of a swing, what do you want audience members to consume from that ending?
James DeMonaco: God, that’s a great question, AJ. I hope they’re thrilled and I hope they’re squirming and squeamish. I hope some people cheer. I’d love to bring the cheers into a horror movie, which I don’t think I’ve ever truly seen. I know we get it sometimes in action films and whatnot, but I think it’s a combination of so many genres. At some point in there, I wanted the music to be almost like giallo-like at some point to get into synthesizer. So I was trying to weave together all my love of different genres.
And I wanted Pete’s, I don’t want to give too much away either, but what Pete’s kind of revenge fantasy as he rises up, I wanted people to really love. It was a build to loving him emotionally. Otherwise, I think it would’ve been meaningless. But if you were with him for the journey and had empathy for what he went through, I hope that people are really not only shocked at how we are not pulling our punches, it’s kind a blood feast, but I hope that they’re also emotionally invested so that they’re cheering along with Pete as it’s unfolding.
PopHorror: All right, James, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been fun. And congratulations on The Home.
James DeMonaco: AJ, thank you. Fantastic questions, my friend. Thank you so much.
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The Home released on July 25th, 2025. Check it out at a theater near you!
