Film / Home Movie

Always a good sign.

"There seems to be a tendency nowadays to, and it's been gradual, I think, there's a checklist that we have for children; where whenever there is a problem, there's a solution, and we have Oprah, and we have pills and we can sort of prescribe away the problem. I think it's still possible for a family to do everything right, and still have things go terribly wrong."

— Director and Writer Christopher Denham

Home Movie documents one family's descent into darkness through compilation of the Poe family's home-made video footage. In the remote woods of upstate New York, David and Clare Poe are attempting to live an idyllic life. However, the Poe children are hiding a dark secret and something is wrong with ten-year old twins, Jack and Emily Poe. To stop them, their parents must enter the nightmare of their children’s minds. As they try to regain control of the children’s lives, the pressing question becomes who will ultimately survive the battle.

Definitely not to be confused with Home Movies.

This film provides examples of the following tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Dave's are implied to have been.
• Adults Are Useless: Downplayed in that Dave and Clare do (eventually) notice, do care and do try to do something about their kids. But it's too little too late, and their children just seem to be smarter.
• The Alcoholic: Dave.
• And I Must Scream: If too many are taken at once, the kids' pills can cause what is described as "a conscious coma". That's what probably happens to Dave before he's killed.
• Animal Motifs: Dragons.
• Answer Cut: Of sorts. Clare inquires of her husband as to who bit Jack and Emily - and we immediately move on to the next scene where Clare reveals how Jack and Emily severely bit another kid at school.
• Apocalyptic Log: Dave loves to frame his harmless home videos as this, in jest. Turned out he was just Tempting Fate.
• The Bad Guy Wins: By all looks, Jack and Emily succeed in their quest to kill and eat their parents.
• Batter Up!: Jack beats the parents with one.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Jack and Emily's hide and seek Halloween costumes.
• Bedsheet Ladder: The kids use one to sneak out on Easter.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Clare is an atheist child psychiatrist and Dave is a Christian pastor frowning on psychiatry, but they both acknowledge that more unites them than divides - namely, faith that either science or religion is able to help them overcome everything. They live just about long enough to discover that they're wrong.
• Book Ends: During the ending the children are wearing exactly the same masks as in the opening Halloween scene - Oni masks, and then paperbags.
• Bound and Gagged: Christian, and later Dave and Clare.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Downplayed in that there's little that points towards an actual incest - but the kids always sleep in the same bed despite having two separate ones, which is noted by the parents.
• Callback:
  • Emily pretends to be dead while Clare is dragging her through the forest in the wagon at the beginning, and in the end Clare is in the exact same position in the wagon as Emily is dragging her back to the house.
• Chase Scene: Near the end the kids chase Clare through the woods. And it's not a straightforward chase either because it's obvious that they are able to catch up with her at any time. They are simply wearing her down, as in Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
• Chekhov's Gun: The baseball bat, the pills, the Magi sculptures, the trash bags.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Subverted. At the very final Hope Spot at dawn, the ice cream truck mentioned earlier to come by very early in the morning reappears and looks like a probable Deus ex Machina, but no.
• Chekhov's Skill: One of the rare dark examples of the trope. Dave really shouldn't have taught his children about the lockpicking and tying the "ungetoutofable" knots...
• Christianity is Catholic: Averted; Dave is a Lutheran minister.
• Conlang: The kids make up their own language.
• Creepy Basement: There is one in the house, as shown at the beginning. However, all the really creepy events in the film actually happen elsewhere.
• Creepy Child: AND HOW.
• Creepy Twins: Jack and Emily, so very much so that it doesn't even begin to describe it. In fact, the entire film is "Creepy Twins: The Movie".
• Cut Phone Lines
• Deliberately Cute Child: Jack and Emily pull this, after being prescribed pills, and after the exorcism.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  Dave: "Good evening... and welcome to haunted house ghost sightings of... ghosts."
• Demonic Possession: Dave tries exorcising the children at one point. We never find out if they were possessed or not, but given how the film ended, it's doubtful.
• Determinator: Clare was beaten, stabbed in the arm, and drugged, and still managed to make it through the woods and to the road while being chased.
• Don't Go in the Woods: Inverted. If only the parents had gone into that "clubhouse" earlier... Also, in the climax Clare is actually relatively safe as long as she manages to stay in the woods. Played straight with poor Christian, however.
• Downer Ending: The parents are drugged and strapped to the table, with heavy implications that the kids intend to kill and eat them. Well, at least they're unlikely to become Karma Houdini since the authorities have already been alerted and there's Sole Survivor Christian to testify.
• Easter Bunny: Dave dresses as a pink one for Easter.
• Emotionless Girl: Emily hums, but never says a word in English for the first half of the film. Even in the second part, she only says a few words.
• Enfant Terrible: Downplayed, as the kids don't seem to put much effort in keeping the facade to begin with, but they can act cute when they think they need to.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: For some reason, the dog is freaking out on the night Dave and Clare find the kids in bed together. And the cat seems to freak out at the sight of the kids in the first scene of the movie.
• Failed a Spot Check: The kids can be seen right above Clare when she tries to go upstairs in the climax. Their presence is so obvious to the viewer that it is practically a Jump Scare.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: The Story of the Dragon and the Paper Bag; it's about a two-headed dragon that disguises itself as a normal child, as part of a plan to kill and eat all the children in the town it lives near.
• Farts on Fire: Jokingly discussed by Dave in one of the scenes.
• Fast-Forward Gag: A literal and non-comedic example. The seemingly "uninteresting" bits of the movie are occasionally getting fastforwarded (see Framing Device below).
• Feet-First Introduction: We get to see a feet-to-head shot of Clare's legs upon her introduction.
• For the Evulz: The film toyed a little bit with supernatural and psychoanalytical explanations of the kids' behavior, and neither was definitively ruled out. But, all that said, in the end the impression is that the kids' motivation actually boils down to this.
• Foreshadowing: Lots of it, actually.
  • David tells a story about the two-headed cannibalistic dragon with paperbags on his heads. Guess what the two kids wear when they prepare to eat their parents...
  • And even before the aforementioned story we've got the "My children have been turned into fire-breathing dragons!" line.
  • The book Clare reads early in the movie is "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey M. Cleckley, describing how psychopaths manage to appear outwardly normal. Not that those kids appear particularly sane to begin with, but still...
  • David jokingly framing his early home videos as an Apocalyptic Log.
  • Dave contemplating devoting his Christmas sermon to the decidedly un-Christmas topic of Cain and Abel. It's only that there's no Abel...
  • "Dead things go in trash bags."
  • "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody (see below).
  • Kids' fascination with biting people, eating raw meat, watching documentaries about flesh-devouring animals strongly foreshadows the parents' eventual fate.
  • The very opening shot of the movie, with the dead animal's body being stuffed in the trash bag serves as this.
• Framing Device: A very subtle one: it is implied that we can only see the film because someone is watching the videotapes. We are occasionally reminded of it by the fact that that someone fastforwards the seemingly "uninteresting" bits. Who this watcher is (the kids themselves?) and what their motives are is anyone's guess.
• Freudian Excuse: Nope. At one point that seemed to be where the film was going, with Clara implying Parental Abuse on part of David, but it got subverted pretty quickly. There was no abuse, and even more than that, in the end one can't help feeling that the total absence thereof made the kids worse, thus making it a possibly unique case of inversion.
• Full-Name Ultimatum:
  Clare: "Jack Mathias Poe, put that water gun down right now."
• Gasshole: Dave is a minor example, making crude jokes as his wife prepares the turkey for dinner.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  Clare: "That's the TV. It's so frickin' loud."
  Dave: "... Frickin'?"
  Clare: "Yeah, I said frickin', sorry."
  • The last big reveal and Mood Whiplash come right after.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: The film opens with a zoom in on road kill, complete with swarming flies. In the context of the entire film, it actually qualifies as Downer Beginning.
• Hairpin Lockpick: Dave teaches Jack and Emily how to do this. Really, really bad idea...
• Haunted House: Dave starts to think some outside force might be influencing the kids. There's no definite confirmation either way.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Dave teaches the kids stuff like lock picking, and how to tie a bowline. They put these skills to good use.
• Hollywood Exorcism: Averted. Dave performs an amateur one on the kids and their room while noting how archaic the practice is. Throughout the procedure, there are few traces of supernatural presence and little violence involved.
• Holy Burns Evil: Jack and Emily repeatedly interrupting Thanksgiving prayers might be a downplayed example of this trope.
• Home Porn Movie: Joked about by Dave, when he brings the anniversary dinner to the showering Clare.
• Hope Spot: For the very first time, kids actually seem to be alright at the beginning of the Easter day... Also, when Clare seems like she'll flag down the ice cream truck for help.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: A birthday, Halloween, an anniversary, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, and finally Easter. It is subtly implied that the kids want the results of their deeds to be captured on camera, and they know that Dave makes his home videos on special occasions.
• Hostile Show Takeover: A very dark example.
  Jack: "Hi, welcome to The Jack and Emily Show!".
• I'm a Humanitarian: As shown by them eating raw meat, their penchant for biting, and some of their drawings, the kids apparently harbor cannibalistic fantasies. The ending also heavily implies that they eat their parents.
• Incredibly Lame Pun:
  Dave: "And on this episode of Clare Poe: Turkey Proctologist Extraordinaire, we—ooh, rectum? Damn near killed 'em! Huh? Huh?"
• In-Universe Camera: It's a "found footage" style film.
• Jitter Cam: Not often, but certainly present when the camera holder is running.
• Karma Houdini: Downplayed. We don't see Jack and Emily receive any comeuppance for their actions, but Clara and Dave on their last day alive managed to properly alert authorities about the murder attempt by their children, so the punishment might well be just round the corner.
• Kick the Dog: All the family pets shown onscreen - and then some - meet horrifying ends because of Jack and Emily.
• Kids Are Cruel: One of the nicer things Jack and Emily do is crush a frog in a vice.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall
  Jack: "Let's have a staring contest. I dare you to stare until our movie's done. I bet you you can't."
• Little "No": When Dave finds all the fucked up stuff in the kids' clubhouse.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The kids don Halloween demon masks for the big night, and later have paper bags on as they're about to kill their parents.
• Manchild: Dave. He loves bad jokes and dressing up in costumes for the holidays - and not just the holidays you usually wear costumes for.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Are the kids just sociopathic, or is there something to Dave's rants about an evil presence in the house and surrounding area? The film doesn't rule out anything, but it's clear that the supernatural is not at all in the focus.
• Mockumentary: The portions where Clare uses the camera to document her work follow this style.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • David's story about the two-headed cannibalistic dragon wearing the paper bag over his head, and the scene where the children throw their dinnerware to the ground, is echoed in the final shot of the film: their struggling parents are restrained on the dining table while the children sit clutching silverware and wearing paper bags over their heads, seemingly preparing to eat their parents.
  • The moral of the same story suggested by David - "Don't trust strangers" - is echoed by Clare's later despaired statement: "I feel like I don't know these people... They're strangers in my house."
• Mood Whiplash: Almost inevitable, given that all the events depicted occurred on major holidays.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The twins illustrate their plan to attack Christian, another boy at their school, and their secret clubhouse is littered with such drawings.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We don't actually get to see any murders on camera. And the scariest part is probably what happens right after the film ends.
• Oh, Crap!: When Clare realizes that she and David have been drugged. The viewers get one too when Jack starts filming.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Fuck, those kids are fast! Could be a hint that, just possibly, something supernatural was at play - though given the seeming lack of surprise on part of Dave, it might be that it just looks weird onscreen. And it never happens during the climax.
• Off with His Head!: It's a surprise that dog lasted as long as it did.
• Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: Clare, when she sits in Dave's lap while he's dressed as the Easter Bunny. It turns out to be a carrot.
• "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: Invoked by David as a harmless prank for Clare at their anniversary.
• Psycho Smirk: The twins show this off when they take over the camera.
• The Quiet One: Part of the overall creepiness. We don't see any of the kids talking at all until almost half an hour into the film, and even then it's in some unknown (demonic?) language. It's only in the end that they really begin talking, and then it's arguably even more creepy...
• Reality Has No Soundtrack: Surprisingly averted, despite the "found footage" style. It's easy to confuse with ambient sounds though.
• Red Herring: After it was revealed that the children had been bitten, Dave's troubled childhood and his drinking problem hinted to Clare that there might have been some Parental Abuse involved, and there's also the fact that Dave had playfully bitten Clare early in the movie. It's pretty quickly established though that the children did it to themselves, possibly aiming at Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
  • There is also a couple of references to fire early on in the film... but nothing remotely resembling that is ever forthcoming.
• Removed from the Picture: Dave finds a family photo in the kids' clubhouse, with his and Clare's faces scratched out.
• Riddle for the Ages: What exactly did Emily mean (if anything) when she confirmed that there were "bad things in the house"? Was there "the man of the closet"?
• Room Full of Crazy / Torture Cellar: The clubhouse.
• Self-Made Orphan: The movie ends just before Jack and Emily become these.
• Sexy Priest: Dave, though he's technically a pastor.
• Show Within a Show: The Jack and Emily Show. Which is basically a snuff film, with the only difference that it stops right before the murders.
• Shower Scene: Clare gets one, but Sexy Discretion Shot is in play.
• Siblings in Crime: Jack and Emily work together very closely.
• Sickeningly Sweet: In-universe, the kids' Thanksgiving pilgrim costumes:
  Clare: "You guys look so cute, I'm gonna vomit."
• Significant Birthdate: Possibly. The twins were born on October 31, 1997. And the first scene of the movie (apart from the short opening), already containing much foreshadowing, takes place on Halloween.
• Snuff Film: The kids stopped recording just before the film would turn into this.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: The twins are this when they even bother to speak in the first place.
• Sole Survivor: Apart from the twins themselves, it's, amazingly enough, Christian. And we're not only counting humans here...
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Cheerful ice cream truck music is played over the first bit of the credits.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: The kids tie Christian McNamara to a makeshift one, apparently intent on butchering him.
• Supernatural-Proof Father: Dave, initially. He eventually wises up to become even more Genre Savvy than his wife though ("Our kids are fucking psychotic!").
• Tempting Fate: Early in the film, Dave jokingly lends something of an Apocalyptic Log to his home videos: "Honey, if I don't make it back, I want you to know..." It doesn't really come to bite him back though. Until the ending, that is.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Clare had an eleven year-old patient who had hallucinations of "a man made of nails" hiding under his bed; after biting each other, the kids also claim "the man in the closet" was responsible.
• Those Things Are Not My Children: Clare says something to this effect near the end.
• Too Dumb to Live: While Clare and Dave are suspicious of Jack and Emily's behavior, they don't really take any precautions to keep anything serious from happening, even after the kids are discovered trying to kill a classmate. Double points for Clare actually being a child psychiatrist.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In tons. Watching an animal documentary showing wolves eating a carcass, throwing rocks at their dad's head, crucifying the family cat, killing their goldfish and making a sandwich from them, eating raw meat, violently attacking and biting each other and another child, sticking the family dog's head on a spike, very nearly attempted murder of aforementioned child, killing their parents...
• Twisted Christmas: On Christmas morning, the twins kill and crucify the family cat on a decorative cross in the house.
• The Unreveal: The film skips Jack's responses to the Rorschach ink blot test, though it's possible he didn't give any actual answers, hence the fast forwarding.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: David, upon finding the family dog's head on a pike.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The nails the kids pour outside the house seems to be setting something up... but nope.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The kids possibly bite themselves in order to make Dave out as an abuser. It could have worked, had they not bitten another kid at school soon after.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The kids' age isn't really consistent with when Dave and Clare mentioned they got married, but maybe they got pregnant out of wedlock?

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