‘The Front Room’ Review: A24’s Mean-Spirited Hagsploitation Movie Is Neither Scary Nor Funny
variety.comTomris Laffly If we live long enough, we won’t be spared from seeing the misfortunes of old age sneak into our bodies, unmercifully deteriorating the things — like healthy hair and intact teeth — we once took for granted.
A mean-spirited, gross-out hagsploitation exercise co-written by first-time directors Max and Sam Eggers (brothers of the contemporary horror master Robert Eggers, with whom Max wrote “The Lighthouse”), “The Front Room” will only be tolerable if you find those aging-related hardships — incontinence, being chief among them — spooky and funny.
Otherwise, with the exception of “The Tragedy of Macbeth” Oscar nominee Kathryn Hunter’s fiercely committed performance, much of this well-designed but boring film yields a shrug.
Hunched, delirious and sporting a chewy drawl, Hunter craftily plays Solange, the nasty surprise who insinuates herself, not into someone’s body (despite constant and tedious teases, “The Front Room” isn’t a possession-themed supernatural horror), but into her stepson Norman (Andrew Burnap) and his heavily pregnant wife Belinda’s (a convincing Brandy Norwood) modest house.
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