When “Going Home” Feels Like Punishment
Some horror films are terrifying because of the monsters. Others because of the blood, the ghosts, the psychological trauma. Jack Goes Home is terrifying because you have no idea what the hell is going on — and worse, you start to suspect the filmmakers don’t either.
Written and directed by Thomas Dekker, Jack Goes Home tries to be profound, artsy, and disturbing all at once. Unfortunately, it ends up being about as coherent as a therapy session conducted during an earthquake. It’s like Donnie Darko got drunk and decided to make a prestige family drama on a $50,000 budget.
You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll Google the plot afterward because you won’t know what you just watched.
Jack Comes Home (And Immediately Regrets It)
The story — and I use that word loosely — follows Jack (Rory Culkin), a haunted, sensitive young man who returns to his hometown after his father dies in a car crash. His mother (Lin Shaye, bless her, doing her best in a role that’s 90% screaming and 10% cryptic monologues) survives the wreck and is recovering at home, possibly on drugs, possibly possessed, possibly just reading from the world’s most confusing screenplay.
Jack, meanwhile, is tormented by his childhood, by a mysterious message left by his dead dad, and by his own reflection, which seems to be having a better time than he is. The result is a series of scenes that suggest a psychological thriller but play like an experimental student film that got an “A” purely for effort.
Every scene feels like a clue to a deeper mystery, except the mystery turns out to be: “Why is everyone in this movie acting like they’re in different genres?”
Rory Culkin: Sad Emo Son of the Year
Rory Culkin has always been the Culkin you cast when you want that haunted, slightly greasy look of a man who reads Nietzsche for comfort. Here, he spends most of the movie staring into the middle distance, clutching his chest, and saying lines like, “The truth is a ghost that eats itself.”
Is he grieving? Is he losing his mind? Is he allergic to normal human conversation? The movie refuses to say. Culkin gives a performance that’s equal parts intense and incomprehensible, like if someone dropped Frodo Baggins into a Lars von Trier movie and told him to just feel things.
Lin Shaye Deserves Hazard Pay
Lin Shaye, horror’s favorite unhinged matriarch, is the movie’s chaotic MVP. She plays Jack’s mother, a drug-addled, trauma-ridden enigma who alternates between sobbing, insulting her son, and baking cookies that may or may not contain human sorrow.
It’s as if her character from Insidious had a nervous breakdown, moved to Colorado, and started living on red wine and bad decisions.
One moment she’s tender, the next she’s hurling glassware and screaming about family secrets. You can tell Shaye is trying — she really is — but it’s hard to act when your dialogue sounds like it was written by a philosophy major during a manic episode:
“You think grief is a hole, Jack, but it’s a womb! A womb!”
Someone needs to get Lin a nice cozy sitcom after this. She’s earned it.
A Supporting Cast in Search of a Plot
Then there’s the supporting cast, who seem to have wandered in from other movies entirely. Nikki Reed, in her final film role, appears briefly to deliver exposition that goes nowhere. Natasha Lyonne pops up just long enough to remind you that you could be watching Russian Doll instead.
Daveigh Chase — yes, the creepy girl from The Ring — plays Jack’s friend Shanda, whose entire purpose seems to be looking worried and asking Jack, “Are you okay?” Spoiler alert: he is not.
By the time Britt Robertson shows up as Cleo, a “friend” who may or may not be imaginary, you’ll have stopped trying to tell who’s real, who’s dead, and who’s just another metaphor for guilt.
The “Plot Twist” That Twists Itself Into a Knot
Somewhere near the third act — though time has lost all meaning by this point — Jack discovers a series of tapes left by his dead father. They lead him on what the synopsis generously calls a “mind-bending scavenger hunt.” In reality, it’s more like a depressive Easter egg hunt where all the eggs are filled with trauma.
Each new revelation is accompanied by ominous music and the vague sense that something profound is supposed to be happening. Eventually, we learn that Jack’s family history is full of lies, abuse, and tragedy. It’s not clear what the lies are, or why they matter, or whether any of it is even real — but don’t worry, the movie will keep reminding you how symbolicit all is.
By the time the final twist arrives, involving long-buried secrets and psychological breakdowns, the only thing that’s truly shocking is how little you care.
Horror or Hallucination? Yes.
To be fair, Jack Goes Home does try for atmosphere. It’s drenched in dreamy lighting, eerie sound design, and slow zooms that scream “film festival entry.” But none of that matters when every scene feels disconnected from the last.
It’s unclear whether the movie is supposed to be supernatural, psychological, or just a really elaborate therapy session filmed on location. Sometimes it feels like Hereditary without the payoff; other times, it’s The Babadook with a hangover.
The cinematography isn’t bad — in fact, it’s often striking — but it’s wasted on a script that confuses “ambiguous” with “incomprehensible.”
Thomas Dekker: Auteur or Arsonist?
Writer-director Thomas Dekker clearly wants to make art. You can sense it in every frame — the brooding monologues, the fragmented editing, the pretentious symbolism (mirrors! blood! cassette tapes!). It’s all very film school final project: trauma edition.
The problem is, Dekker mistakes obscurity for depth. Just because something’s confusing doesn’t mean it’s meaningful. By the halfway mark, you can almost hear him whispering from behind the camera, “If you don’t get it, that’s because you’re not supposed to.”
No, Thomas. We get it. You just didn’t write it.
Soundtrack by Sadness and Static
If there’s one thing the movie nails, it’s the soundscape. Every room hums, every silence stretches, and every cello note sounds like it’s being played underwater. The score feels less like music and more like an ongoing panic attack.
But even that becomes exhausting. You can only listen to so many dissonant strings before your brain starts humming its own dirge in self-defense.
The Emotional Rollercoaster from Hell (That Never Moves)
Jack Goes Home wants to be a deep dive into grief, trauma, and generational dysfunction. What it ends up being is a slow-motion spiral into confusion, punctuated by monologues about “truth” and “pain” that sound like rejected Fight Club quotes.
There’s an entire subplot involving Jack’s sexuality that could have been interesting — if the movie hadn’t treated it like a weird afterthought between scenes of ghostly whispers and self-loathing.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone baring their soul and then realizing halfway through they left the oven on.
Final Thoughts: Jack Should’ve Stayed Away
In the end, Jack Goes Home is less a horror movie and more a chaotic mood board of grief, trauma, and bad editing choices. It’s not scary, it’s not insightful, and it’s definitely not coherent.
Rory Culkin looks miserable, Lin Shaye looks like she’s about to fire her agent, and the audience looks like they’ve been emotionally catfished by the trailer.
If you’re into movies where the plot is a suggestion, the characters speak in riddles, and the symbolism hits you like a wet tissue, then congratulations — Jack Goes Home is your new favorite film. For everyone else, just stay where you are.
Grade: D (for “Disoriented, Depressing, and Definitely Not Deep”)
Recommended for: philosophy majors on mushrooms, people who thought “The Babadook needed more family drama,” and anyone who enjoys watching Rory Culkin suffer for art.
