[Review] Homebound
From the very beginning, a distinct feeling of estrangement courses throughout Sebastian Godwin’s Homebound. En route to meet the children of her new husband Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill), Holly (Aisling Loftus) feels the unique burden of becoming a stepmother. She is out of step and awkward at their residence, often being talked over and shunned. A goose chase which results in the animal’s brutal death (and subsequent undercooked dinner) is highly upsetting to Holly. In films nearly twice as long, the tension of an unwanted house guest perpetrated by creepy kids is a slow build. Here the atmosphere is immediately corrupted. Bolstered by Jeremy Warmsley’s dissonant score, the film is a relatively breezy series of uncomfortable vignettes. And they all point to the central mystery concerning Richard’s previous wife.
As an inverse of genre fare like The Stepfather series, which captures the escalating red flags of abuse in a family unit, Homebound utilizes this familiar scenario to show a step parent greeted by a hostile environment. At times, there is a haunting, ritualistic vibe that gives the impression of backwoods/folk horror and is even suggestive of a supernatural presence. The film’s main setting is a conspicuously unkempt house on a remote piece of land. It feels lived in, though the cinematography by Sergi Vilanova Claudin evokes the grounds of an abandoned cemetery rather than a family home. Every design aspect of Homebound is designed to be faithful to the film’s oppressive title. And the more alienated Holly becomes, the more we fear for her safety.
What Godwin accomplishes with a sparse environment is compelling, especially when it comes to directing performances that are meant to be purposefully antagonistic. The cast of kids are frustratingly aloof and their calculated behavior keeps the dread thick. Hattie Gotobed as Lucia stands out as somewhat of a mastermind for the scheme Holly is embroiled in and Goodman-Hill plays a good shifty patriarch. The threatening spirit of the film and uneasy dynamic between characters keeps the film afloat, and there are hardly any lulls. However, the final act is underwhelming compared to how persistent the film’s script is about the secrets of this family. At just over an hour, the film doesn’t waste time seizing the viewer’s intrigue. But as it wraps up, narrative apathy takes the place of ambiguity.
As far as horror films about white women in a perpetual state of panic are concerned, Homebound is an interesting watch for Loftus’s performance. The film serves its lead’s paranoia and malbeing, making an effective horror entry. Almost the entire project is from Holly’s point of view, making her disorientation our own. Yet it fumbles the delivery of her husband’s heel turn and the role his children play in her psychosis is dramatically undercut by the ending. As it stands, the film can’t help but rush to the finish line and it sacrifices the naturalistic characterization that it earns in such a short span of time. The biggest issue here isn’t that its conclusion is too obvious, but that it doesn’t recontextualize all that we’ve seen before in an interesting way. It’s a nightmare to soak in for anyone who has ever been made to feel othered in a less than ideal relationship. Yet it resolves that drama too quickly for its own good.
