brickbishop

A film that will linger in your mind like a faint musky sweet, incense in a ruined Basilica at midnight- especially when you remember that burning spinal fluid has the exact same scent.

There are films that claw at your senses, shrieking for attention with severed limbs and clowns with boundary issues. And then there is Home Education-a somber study in inherited lunacy that prefers to creep in politely, uninvited, and rearrange the furniture of your mind while you're still admiring the wallpaper.

The plot, if one dares reduce it to such a clinical term, concerns a family marinating in a rich broth of superstition, death-ritual, and isolation-induced theology. What begins as a peculiar household quirk evolves - inevitably, as these things do - into a full-blown metaphysical hostage situation. It all echoes, faintly but unmistakably, the greatest hits of cultish catastrophe: Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, the Manson Family Christmas Album. You'll find no poisoned punch here, but plenty of simmering delusion served deliciously tepid over a quiet fire.

The performances are magnificent - so good, in fact, that one suspects the actors may have simply wandered in from a nearby commune, still in character, and no one had the heart to stop them. There is a rare and dreadful grace to the trio at the heart of the film: These are roles inhabited, not performed- One of those rare alignments where talent, tone, and madness click into place like a loaded gun Of course, this is not a film for the impatient. If you require your horror with chainsaw wielding clowns in cornfields, or comically ironic brain eating vegan zombies - ideally while watching TikToks of cats in aluminum foil booties in large industrial stainless steel sinks - this may not be for you.

But for those blessed few who still possess an attention span longer than a reel, Home Education offers a sinister and meditative reward: a tale that trusts its viewer to listen, to notice, and above all, to wait.

I will conclude -with a withering nod - that I highly recommend it to those with actual taste and attention spans:. But don't be surprised if, halfway through, you start checking your own family tree for signs of quiet heresy.

Worst ending imaginable. Truly - EVER.

One enters a thriller with the reasonable expectation of being artfully manipulated: misled, toyed with, nudged to the brink of madness like some poor doomed heroine in a Hitchcockian melodrama. One welcomes the paranoia, the creeping suspicion, the exquisite little frisson that perhaps you are the one being gaslit. It's all part of the charm.

But alas, this particular film, having assembled a splendid cast and the skeleton of what might have been a brilliant narrative, chose instead to collapse in upon itself like a badly-erected soufflé. It squandered its plot, insulted its performers, and, most egregiously, spat in the face of its audience by offering no resolution - none at all. The story simply withered, curled up in the final act like a poisoned fern.

Normally I'm something of a contrarian when it comes to popular opinion - happy to champion the misunderstood, the avant-garde, the critically maligned.

But in this case, no. NO NO NO NO.

The critics are right. The movie is an ordeal. Watching it is like being serenaded by a virtuoso only to discover halfway through that the composition is just a series of tuneless scales, looped until your will to live evaporates.

I am henceforth resolved never to venture into cinematic territory again without consulting the collective wisdom of strangers on the internet. I have been wounded - deeply, spiritually - and trust, once broken, is not so easily restored.

I was unsure when this was suggested as a possible movie outing, I'm QUITE pleased- It's a great movie with a fresh take on demonic shenanigans! I love the portrayal of the American/ Indian lead, it was just what we needed in as it is a fun, thrilling movie for the fans of the practical monster suit/costume and not a lot of just CGI. People who might be looking for a more complex film might not get it. The actresses/actors are ones I'm not familiar with, (a great thing not to see the same Hollywood types in the roles), and admiring their acting skills, I'm sure they are destined for bigger roles 10 claws up!