[Film Review] Homebodies (1974)

What is your opinion of the elderly? Are they sweet and wise, with a good moral compass? Or maybe you think of them as being useless to society, senile and a burden? Writer/director Larry Yust challenges these stereotypes in his 1974 comedy horror Homebodies in which a group of elderly neighbours are on the verge of being evicted from their homes. The building they live in is days away from being demolished to make way for more a more affluent housing development, and so geriatric carnage ensues as they take protecting their home into their own hands. Yust makes sure to spend time with each of the main ensemble so we can see their personal reasons for wanting to stay in their homes and see the humanity in each of them, which manages to keep us relatively grounded. However, this undeniably absurd premise still makes for a lot of laughs and a surprisingly high body count.

We open with Mattie (Paula Trueman) who is the undeniable highlight of Homebodies. Something is noticeably unique about Mattie; maybe it’s the twinkle in her eye as a builder falls to his death at her feet. She had set up a chair outside a building site, brought prunes to snack on, and is watching a new skyscraper be built by the same company who will be knocking down her home. This behaviour is later recontextualised when it’s explained that she, along with two of the other neighbours, had sabotaged the building site. She knew an accident was about to take place and was there to watch it unfold. This is where the fun is found in Homebodies; Trueman has such a charming and animated disposition that we find ourselves pulled into Mattie’s devious headspace and wanting her to succeed. She can be joyful, threatening, and mischievous all in the same scene and you can’t help but support her, despite her murderous intent. In one of the most delightful scenes, Mattie is driving a car (belonging to a woman she has just stabbed to death) for the first time in forty years. Trueman is so expressive that, even though no words are spoken, you can hear Mattie’s thoughts as if she is voicing her stream of consciousness. The police pulling up next to her and waving while she drives with a bloody knife sitting on her passenger seat is charmingly slapstick.

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All the tenants are given such rich lives and motivations that it is hard to not root for them, despite them being very obviously in the wrong. Yust really put an effort into making their characters feel fully formed and three dimensional, which then makes the housing developers and workers who try to oust them seem even more patronising and heartless. It is clear what Homebodies is trying to say, we do not lose our personhood as we age. The elderly are usually reduced to archetypes in media, relegated to being an all-knowing mentor figure or the senile comic relief character. Yust allows his cast to be people; they can be funny, ruthless, conniving, or even everything at once. This was refreshing to see, especially as it’s still an issue prevalent in contemporary media, with actresses regularly complaining of ‘ageing out’ of the interesting and engaging roles. 

Homebodies does have its shortcomings. The ending sees our cast jump to infighting too quickly, after we just had them band together into a relatively harmonious community for much of the runtime. Also, the humour did sometimes lean too far into the absurd, which then detracted from any tension being built; for example, the climax is a peddle-boat chase which seemed too bizarre and misplaced for what should have been the emotional peak. Personally, I think Homebodies would be an excellent candidate for a remake, where the horror and tension are amped up to match the quantity of kills (8 people die, in some pretty inventive ways) while still keeping the black comedy that keeps the characters charming. And with generational tensions higher than ever, it could be an interesting concept to explore for a modern audience.

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