31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 29 - Don't Leave Home

Don’t Leave Home

86 mins

Dir. Michael Tully

2018/USA

As we get close to the end of the month, we are going to get a little highbrow and watch one of those fancy art films that are a slow burn with a twist ending.  The title of this one says it all.  Don’t Leave Home.

Our story open with a priest who by hanging himself opens the gates of hell.  Ha Ha just kidding, a little Fulci joke there.  No this is a much different movie.  It opens In Ireland with a priest painting the picture of a little girl praying in front of a virgin mary statue out in a garden.  Soon after, the little girl goes missing.  The strange thing is though, the picture of her in the painting also goes missing, like she was never painted in it.

Fast forward to the present day, Melanie an artist in the US is making a series of dioramas for an art show she is having, the theme is unexplained missing people in Ireland.  Apparently it is a thing.  An early review gets out before the gallery opening and she is slammed.  That night sulking in a glass of alcohol, she get a mysterious call.  Apparently the priest who painted the portrait of the little girl who went missing, would like to buy her diorama of his painting as well as commission her to do another piece and be presents for its auction in Ireland.  This is where the title of the movie comes in, but she doesn’t listen and goes anyway.

She arrives at a secluded estate inhabited only by the priest, who has since left priest hood and has been acquitted of any charges about the missing girl, Shelly, who more or less has a stranglehold on the priest and runs the show around the estate and Padraig, the mute creepy servant.  It isn’t long before Melanie starts having nightmares and visions while staying at the estate and like any sane person would, decides she can’t stay any longer and needs to leave.  But Shelly being the dominant persuasive person she is convinces her to stay at least until the auction.

Bored yet?  This movie continues on its slow burn route and never seems to reach its climax.  It never explains anything, but if you pay attention close enough you can put the pieces together.  Not necessarily why it happens, but what is happening. Unsure if it wants to be a gothic thriller, a mystery, horror or what.  It is slightly disjointed, never delving deep enough into one particular thing.  I king of link it in pace with I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives In the House, but it has far less of a poetic quality than that.  Once Don’t Leave Home comes to its conclusion, I was just kind of like, OK.  Nice story, interesting concept, but nothing really compelled me enough to care by the time it was over.  Whenever there is a slight period of building tension it is never expanded upon enough.

Other reviews for this film really rave about it.  The acting, directing, pretty much everything in the film is well done.  I was just not very captivated by the story.  It has also been linked in similarities to Get Out, which I was also not a big fan of.  So Don’t Leave Home, Get Out, I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to do anymore, either way I think I would rather watch something else.