"Don't Leave Home" *** (out of ****)
["Don't Leave Home" opens this Friday (9/14/18) in Chicago for a week long run at Facets]
There's no place like home in director Michael Tully's mystery / horror movie, "Don't Leave Home" (2018)
The golden age of American horror movies are generally believed to have been made in the 1930s and 40s at Universal Studios with the creation of monster movies such as "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), and "The Mummy" (1932). For the last decade however there has been a resurgence in quality horror movies from "The Conjuring" (2013) and all its sequels and spinoffs to "Lights Out" (2016) and "The Babadook" (2014). The first half of "Don't Leave Home" appears to be another example.
The movie begins in 1986 Ireland when eight year old Siobhan Callahan (Alisha Weir) disappears from her home never to be seen again. The mysterious event occurred after the young girl had been painted by a priest, posing in front of a grotto, praying to a statue of the Virgin Mary. After the girl disappears, so does her image on the painting.
Thirty years later an American diorama artist, Melanie (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is preparing an exhibition titled "Lost Souls of Ireland" about Siobhan's disappearance as well as other missing person cases over the past three decades.
After receiving a negative review from an influential art critic, Melanie is contacted by the priest involved in the disappearance, Father Alistar Burke (Lalor Roddy), who has since walked away from the church and lives a life in seclusion. He would like to meet Melanie to buy one of her pieces and asks her to create a new one.
Intrigued to meet Father Burke, Melanie travels to the Irish countryside where also living there is Shelley (Helena Bereen), a kind elderly lady, who takes care of Father Burke, and may just be too friendly.
Like the recent "The Nun: (2018) director Tully's story is a throwback to 1970s American horror movies which combined religious elements. "Don't Leave Home" touches on art, religion, and faith but doesn't make any powerful statement. The movie works best as an exercise in mood and atmosphere. There are some truly effective and brilliant moments that may make you look over your shoulder. Tully makes the countryside setting a character in itself with the deliberate slow pace he has events move along.
Hollyman, who was in the rather disappointing "Claire in Motion" (2016), finds a much more engrossing character in Melanie. She plays the character vulnerable and sympathetic, making her responsible, in large part, for the appealing nature of the movie.
It becomes apparent by the third act that "Don't Leave Home" creates more questions than it has answers for. Still, there is a level of filmmaking that can be admired as well as some nice performances, a good musical score and interesting cinematography.
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