Director of “The Home” Matthias Skoglund at SXSW on March 10th, 2025.
“The Home,” a Swedish horror movie, based on the novel by Mat’s Strandberg, premiered at SXSW on March 10, 2025, with its Director Matthias Skoglund and stars Gizem Erdogan and Philip Oros in tow. The movie focuses on a son’s putting his ailing mother, Monika (Anka Liden) in a nursing home in Sweden called Ekskuggen. It will screen again on March 12th at 3 p.m, at the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar (Theaters 1, 8 and 6).
The PLOT of The Home
Gizeem Erdogan, who plays Nina in “The Home” Swedish horror film at SXSW. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
The synopsis provided by the filmmakers read: “Many years after leaving the small town behind, Joel returns to move his mother Monika into a home for the elderly struggling with dementia. However, Monika’s health takes a turn for the worse soon after her arrival. She experiences terrifying visions of her late husband, Joel’s abusive father, and begins exhibiting violent behavior. Joel begins to believe that something malevolent and supernatural has taken control of his mother. But with his own history of substance abuse and mental instability, can he trust his own perceptions? As Monika’s memories fade, Joel must confront the demons of his own past, dredged up by his return to the home where he grew up.”
Monika Eddington, during her life, had a stroke. For a brief period of time, she was technically dead. During that time something supernatural may have breached the barrier between life and death. She now “knows things she shouldn’t know” and bad things are happening in the nursing home.
Son Joel (Philip Oros) had a troubled relationship with his dead father throughout his life. His father constantly called him horrible names, accused him of being a drug addict, and was physically abusive. His mother was not immune to such perverse treatment at the hands of her husband, Bengt. Bengt is now deceased. (Or is he?)
As the film opens, Monika is in her kitchen and things are out of control. Soapsuds are rising in the unattended sink. Everything is in disarray, and the elderly woman mentions Bengt (her deceased husband), “is waiting for me on the other side.” Monika is confused about Joel’s identity, at first, and seems fragile and unhealthy.
DIALOGUE
Philip Oros (Joel) at the Q&A following “The Home” on March 10, 2025 at SXSW. (Photo by Connie Wilson.)
Aside from a humorous reference to the home (Ekskuggen) as the Hotel Incontinental, the exchange between Monika and her son, Joel, is far from humorous. At first, exhibiting signs of dementia, she confuses him with her older son Bjorn, the owner of a successful business. Then she asks, “Are you really going to leave me here. What have I done wrong?…But I’m not supposed to be here. This must be a mistake.” Those scenes are heartbreaking. They are often also universal in a world where the Baby Boomers are rapidly aging.
As someone who has had to put her mother into a home (Lantern Park, Coralville, Iowa), the placing of an elderly relative in custodial care is, indeed, traumatic for both sides. In my own case, I moved my mother between the home and her apartment three times, in an attempt to keep her independent, which was her desire. (The home said I “held the record” for multiple moves.) Type II diabetes and poor eyesight eventually forced her into the home full-time, where she lived for 3 full years.
ACTING
The three lead characters (Monika, Nina and Joel) were convincingly portrayed. Anki Liden, who played the elderly Monika, did a great job, and Joel (Philip Oros) and Gizem Erdogan (Nina) were supported by an actress playing Olivia (Malin Levanon), another attendant in the home, who also did a fine job. While Anki (Monika) joined the project only one month before shooting started, Gizem was in from the beginning (2017), having read the novel, She said, “I really loved the novel and joined the project early.” Gizem came aboard during an early version of the script that later removed much of the detective speak that originally dealt with Monika’s mysterious injuries. Director Matthias Skoglund worked with the novelist (Mat Strandberg) to craft the script, which also changed to keep the focus on the three major characters in adapting from the book.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Director Matthias Skoglund at the Swedish Embassy party for “The Home” at SXSW on March 10, 2025. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
The camera work by Malin LQ was well done. There were shots of the full moon over the shoulder of a main character or a field of waving grass that were beautifully composed. But the creepiness of the home was key Unlike some films with dark scenes, it was clear what we were looking at. My only criticism would focus on the pacing of the action, as there is enough violent action and intense scenes, ranging from “jump scares” on, but the time between some of the beats dragged at times.
This is the third recent film or TV series I’ve seen recently that went inside a custodial care facility seeking horror. John Lithgow has a 2024 release “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” while Ted Danson’s current “Inside Man” television series takes a lighter approach to what goes on behind the doors of nursing homes. Bubba-Hotep all the way back to 2002 is a precursor, with Barbara Hershey’s turn in “The Manor” in 2021 in noise an Amazon Original movie with a horror-themed look at the topic.
SOUND
I was impressed by the sound design (Matis Rei), music (Toti Gudnason) and general creepiness of effects like the crashing noises in the kitchen or the point in the film where I wrote: “This sounds like an avalanche.” Director Mathias Skogland explained that he comes from a radio and podcast background “so sound was very important.” He worked with an Icelandic composer and an Estonian sound design team, and the result was gratifying.
CONCLUSION
Lead Philip Oros described the project: “It was fun, but also difficult. I hadn’t really done anything with supernatural elements before.” Producer Siri Hjorton Wagner said that the group began working on the project in 2017. The film shows one more time here at SXSW (Wednesday, March 12th) and joins the ranks of “Horror Movies with Nursing Home Settings” that are worth taking in, (if you don’t mind the scary side of the street and subtitles.)
