Homebodies

I watched this movie with my grandmother when I was about 6 years old. The movie was PG, so I could get away with watching it then. What a hoot! We managed to watch that movie every time we could catch it on and the last line in the movie kept us laughing for the longest: It's me, Mattie.

I know that a movie about old folks killing to keep their homes may be totally horrific to today's society that salivates over brutality performed on perky-breast blonds, pencil-waist brunettes, and their associated blockhead boyfriends. The irony of "Homebodies" is that you're force to have to acknowledge those old folks for what they were doing -- whether you liked it or not. They refused to be pushed around and their tactics were crude, yet effective.

Having said that, I watched it again recently and I found it just as funny, but with a better understanding. While I could say that the murders were truly without warrant, they were in better context than what you see in most slasher flicks nowadays, where the killings are for shock value and good measure.

Grim, sad, nihilistic drama about abandoned elderly people who pull together to preserve their home and dignity. That's the soft sell. The hard sell? After uncaring developers condemn a building and threaten to toss the aged residents onto the street, the residents retaliate with murder.

For a drama, there's plenty of horror here, and there's much food for thought, too. The harsh way we treat our elderly citizens is directly addressed, as is the issue of the limted tenure we all have on this planet. An interesting message buried here-in is that the young underestimate the old at their peril because the old are smarter, more sly, more patient and more experienced.

The performances are excellent, as is the direction, photography and music. The murders are cleverly conceived and executed with grim resolve, and one scene involving permanent incarceraton in concrete is a showstopper.

When I first saw this film, I was struck by its cold, depressing tone and I admired it for its recognition of real problems associated with aging. The idea of the old killing the young is a novel one and employed to great effect in "Homebodies".

It's a silver-haired classic.

I saw this on HBO back when they were only on from 5P to 2A (This is 1976 for those of you too young to remember). It has some bad acting, and the content was dark, to say the least, but it had some really good points. Firstly the soundtrack was great, featuring the tile song "In Sachet" and secondly, a wonderful actor by the name of Ian Wolfe, who if you ever saw him, you would remember him from one of his umpteen TV appearances. (He started acting in his mid-50's and continued until he was 94 years old in the Warren Beatty powered 'Dick Tracy') The cement-pouring scene is worth the price of renting it, if you can find it. I could not locate it to rent on the major internet DVD rental site. (Don't want to break any IMDB rules). If you do find it, check it out. You'll think twice about sticking your aged loved ones in a retirement home.... I guarantee it... :)

Genuinely unique and creepy, Homebodies tells the depressing story of what life is like after society has discarded you. A group of elderly people have had their apartment building, home for much of their lives, condemned, and they have been asked to move to a new residence. When they realize they don't want to move, they take business into their own hands. They stab, sabotage, drown a man in cement, and kill in numerous other ways to keep home, sweet home. While director Larry Yust doesn't have a huge budget at his disposal, it clearly is not needed given the subject matter and the tenements of Cinncinatti serving as a backdrop. This film has a seedy, dark, futile feel to it, and underlying its sick,twisted plot - the deaths are executed with little remorse or feeling. The elderly, who at first illicit pity, soon turn into cold killing machines - very much like what they attack - a huge conglomerate business and "progress." Homebodies is a bona fide horror film and a black comedy as well. The humour is subtle but definitely there. I particularly liked the ending and thought that was a very clever bit to end such a film with. Solid direction and a perverse yet fresh and interesting script aside, the acting for me is what carried this film. The elderly inhabitants are all equally played with polish and pathos by a crew of geriatric character talents - all unfortunately no longer with us - that bring their characters alive - foibles, fears, and all. Paula Trueman plays the biggest role as Mattie. She is sort of a Ruth Gordon type. She is also the personification of evil in the group. She shows us what the elderly are able to get away with because everyone discounts them and their worth. Trueman does an able job creating a woman who is selfish, willful, and downright bad. Ian Wolfe and Ruth McDevitt play the couple that ran the building for so long. Both do very good jobs and create possibly more than anyone else the compassionate side of being old and "left out." Peter Brocco does a wonderful job as an elderly blind man - who has powers that probably any realistic elderly blind man would not possess. Brocco does an incredible job. The last two members are played by William Hansen and Frances Fuller. Fuller plays a woman that has not left her room for twenty years and speaks to her dead father at the dinner table. Hansen plays a man consumed with writing his memoirs of his marriage of 55 years. All of these actors did a marvelous job with their characters. Homebodies is a good film. It is a scary picture, subtly humorous, and thought provoking. The scenes of these tenants being moved to a soul-less huge apartment complex where every room is the same and people just sit on benches waiting to die struck me as particularly horrific. Or the scene with an elderly blind man being shoved into a room - not having learned the dimensions of the room at all. Or maybe the scene of a man pleading with a socially progressive woman about how moving his things, which had taken him a lifetime to sort, would never be able to be put together in the same fashion. He said he literally did not have the time left. These images and many more in Homebodies frightened me more than anything else. Because the sad truth is we offer little time and reflection to those concerns unless we are directly affected as a society. That is the real horror in Homebodies! A wonderfully old-fashioned song begins and ends the film. It reminisces about the joys of a day gone by.

Well meaning, but an unusual, gloomy and comedic dark horror drama with a wicked sense of humour and stinging view of the mistreatment of the elderly as time isn't on their side. While it doesn't always come together (with an ambiguous ending that doesn't know how to tie it up), it remains an interesting parable and compelling at that with it's uniquely original premise.

Six elderly tenants are handed eviction notices, as their apartment is to be torn down and turned into new skyscrapers. However they won't have anything off it and decide the only way they can stay put is to murder those who get in their way or have some sort of control over the development to only slow down the inevitable.

The movie tagline "A Murder a Day Keeps the Landlord Away!" sums it up perfectly.

"Homebodies" tries to mix social commentary with creepy chills and cartoon-like humour… while at times eerie and thoughtful in its context I didn't find it particularly humorous. The tone would get goofy in those moments aiming for a laugh, which didn't complement its sombre air. When the script was trying to be sly with its humour, it fitted better. The slow-burn plot really does strike up a moving chemistry between these convincingly quirky characters, as there's heart and personality given out by the performances. They stick together, kill together to keep their familiar lifestyles they hold so close. But then in a twist of events they start to turn on each other with no second thoughts. There's an odd chase sequence as well… where it crafts a dreamy sort of atmosphere around it and the death traps/or deaths are effectively moulded to get under your skin with the blank, cold expressions of their faces watching those die around them. The performances are solid, led by Paula Trueman's neurotic turn and with the likes of Ruth McDevitt, Ian Wolfe and Peter Brocco.

Director Larry Yust does a durable job and makes good use of the authentic location work to illustrate the urban plight. The camera sprightly frames the activities and the music playfully turn it up.

A worthwhile forgotten 70s offbeat low-budget black comedy shocker.