Demons Haunt a Nursing Home in Swedish Chiller The Home (SXSW)

Title: The Home

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Mattias Johansson Skoglund

Writer: Mattias Johansson Skoglund, Mats Strandberg

Runtime: 87 Minutes

Starring: Philip Oros, Gizem Erdogan, Anki Lidén

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2025.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Mats Strandberg, The Home follows the story of Joel (Philip Oros). After his mother Monika (Anki Lidén) suffers a stroke, Joel returns to his childhood home to transport Monika to a care facility. There, he crosses paths with his old best friend Nina (Gizem Erdogan) who works as a carer at the facility. Together, they observe Monika’s increasingly disturbing behavior until they realize something even scarier than dementia has taken hold of Monika. 

Serviceable supernatural horror, The Home attempts to add its own twist on the horrors of aging.

Joel makes for an interesting main character. Compelled to return out of obligation and genuine love for his mother despite his past, his journey navigating her decline is both tragic and cathartic. Raised in a household held hostage by an abusive father, Joel does his best to unpack his conflicted emotions while packing up his childhood home. Not only does Joel have to contend with the experience of watching his mother slowly succumb to a terrible illness, but he must also do so with the knowledge he harbors, at the very least some, resentment towards her inability to protect him growing up. This manifests when the demon momentarily takes over and wields their experiences against them. The Home uses both his mother’s condition and the memories stuck inside the home as sources of despair, attacking him from multiple angles to enhance his pain.

Philip Oros takes center stage with Joel, making his torture and frustration authentic in the face of the unknown, both in terms of his mother’s health and the force controlling her. Exerting vocal and physical control, Oros ensures that Joel’s moodiness never overshadows his clear devotion to his mother. Otherwise stoic, Oros gives a full performance that gets to the root of Joel’s journey in accepting his mother’s condition. Guilt, grief, disgust, fear, and more. It’s hard not to be drawn in by Oros, which certainly elevates the rest of the film.

The force possessing Monika unsettles in ways that aren’t as obvious as other evil entities. This sub-genre is known to borrow heavily from previous films and with each new entry there seems to be less and less breakout hits exploring relevant themes and twists on its conventions. The Home posits that a quieter psychological torture can pay far more dividends than the typical crass approach to demonic entities. Its approach to unraveling its victims is unique in that it never feels like an onslaught. Content to drop a few bombs into otherwise innocuous interactions, it feeds on the reaction to jarring moments. As people age, there is a chance that their mental faculties fluctuate, leaving their lucid moments at the mercy of uncharacteristic bouts of meanness. This demon takes advantage of that knowledge, making loved ones, staff, and other residents doubt Monika’s intentions. It’s a truly evil way to use the victim as a vehicle for cruelty under the guise of plausible deniability.

While there is nothing outstandingly wrong with The Home, its lack of atmosphere or scares makes it difficult to be memorable in an increasingly growing sub-genre. Mostly riding on its demon’s proclivity for taunting its victims, there isn’t as cohesive of a threat in The Home. From controlling others, casting visions miles away, manifesting itself in multiple places at once, and using more traditional supernatural powers, the demon has multiple tools at its disposal, yet it never feels consistent or effective. The jarring nature of ‘when’ and ‘how’ works against the film rather than for it.

A mixed bag with more positives than negatives, The Home is a solid supernatural horror film with an interesting enough story to deserve a watch. A compelling lead and performance propel the familiar supernatural terrors to a serviceable plane. It may not deliver on exceptional thrills, but it will still get under the skin in a subtler way. It’s not Stateside yet but once it is don’t forget to take a visit to the nursing home from Hell.

Overall Score? 6/10