Home with a View of the Monster | Film Review

At times I feel like I am the only person on the planet that feels creeped out by the whole concept of Airbnb. Not that I have never used it (I have once…just once, only once), and though I had a great experience, it felt weird when the owner showed up to check on a bunch of adults in their 40s. The reverse of that must be weird too, right? How do you let some stranger stay in your home for money? All your stuff is there! Are you okay with the idea of a stranger mucking around in your stuff? And how do you rationalize it out with the other inhabitants of your home? You know, the ones that add character,the ones that need child locks on all the doors? The ones that lived there long before you? Does Home with a View of the Monster answer those questions?

Dennis (Sébastien Charmant) and Rita (Ellen Humphreys) have decided to put their home up on StayBnB, one of those “Home Sharing” apps (I really don’t know what those are called). They have had a tough go at things lately. See, they managed to pick up the home of their dreams at a surprising steal, but that home came with its issues (like they do), and it is wearing on the mental health of the new homeowners.

Now meet Chance (Jasper Hammer) and Kate (Danielle Evon Ploeger). One is an assassin, the other a drug addict. They are on a vacation together, yet neither has a full understanding of what that vacation is about. Someone is supposed to die by the end of it, but who?! Next, meet “The House”. The House is a swanky place with a swanky view. It’s a literal entity with its own ideas of how to put things away and a multitude of sleep paralysis demons. 

To bring it all together for you: Couple A just bought the home of their dreams, but it makes them crazy. Couple B is crazy and rent Couple A’s house for the weekend. The house feeds on negative emotions and makes a meal of Couple B. Couple A comes back early, calling Couple B on the way, telling them to get out, but it’s too late because the house already pushed them over the edge.

The story has a lot of promise to it. However, it suffers from being too layered. It works a little too hard at establishing who we are supposed to like and who we are not, and the viewer may get lost in the nuance. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its great moments, though. Some of the layering of Dennis and Rita’s life with The House works very well; its placement might leave the viewer asking “why” for too long, but the payoff is worth the wait.

It’s hard to determine whose movie this is. Charmant, Humphreys, Hammer, and Ploeger are all given equal time. And each brings their perspective strengths and weaknesses to the screen. Charmant’s physicality and presence are strong, but his delivery seems wooden from time to time. Humphrey’s delivery seems solid, as does her presence. Hammer and Ploeger are both gnawing away at that scenery, but that’s their job, so mission accomplished. Together the cast brings something that works well. These actors all seem to be at the beginning of something great in their lives, and it will be interesting to see their growth in the future.  

The real gem of Home with a View of the Monster is the visuals. The team behind the camera knows where to put that camera. The feelings triggered by how this movie is shot are spot on. Foreboding doom forces the viewers to look up. Fear acts as something in the background, just out of frame as your subjects move into the frame, like it’s in the corner of the viewer’s eye. Brothers Alex and Todd Greenlee fully thought out how to deliver fear and deliver on the promises they made at the opening of the film. 

So here we are. Have we overstayed our welcome? Do we have to ask an unwanted guest to leave? It is hard to tell. Home with a View of the Monster has a lot going for it: strong visual cues that will leave the viewers unsettled, a cast that delivers on the script presented before them, and a writing team that brings some fun and interesting twists on some age-old tropes. The film’s bobbles only come from a bit of excess. Some moments suffer from too much scene-chewing. Some of the story suffers from too much nuance. As one solid piece of art, Home with a View of the Monster may feel like that guest that won’t leave when asked, but in the end, it feels like that guest that improved your life a little while they were there.