{"id":36305,"date":"2025-07-25T12:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/36305\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T12:37:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:37:12","slug":"how-a-127-year-old-n-j-landmark-became-a-horror-movie-set-inside-new-pete-davidson-film-the-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/36305\/","title":{"rendered":"How a 127-year-old N.J. landmark became a horror movie set. Inside new Pete Davidson film \u2018The Home.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Davidson<\/a> smiled for the camera and gave two thumbs up. <\/p>\n

Blood dripped from his head to his chin. <\/p>\n

His white shirt was completely doused, red splashed all down his chest, his hands caked in crimson.<\/p>\n

The actor-comedian looked like he had just walked out of a slaughterhouse, but he was standing outside of a retirement home.<\/p>\n

It was 2022 and he was on the New Jersey set of the horror movie<\/a> \u201cThe Home<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film, opening in theaters Friday (July 25), owes a large part of its foreboding mood to a local landmark that dates to the 19th century.<\/p>\n

Director James DeMonaco<\/a>, known for writing and directing \u201cThe Purge<\/a>\u201d movies, says it wasn\u2019t easy to give \u201cThe Home\u201d a home. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t find a place, we were searching,\u201d he tells NJ Advance Media. <\/p>\n

Davidson<\/a> plays Max, a character forced to confront the terrible secrets of the senior home where he works. He\u2019s told never to go to the fourth floor, but has to know more after hearing unsettling screeches and cries coming from there.<\/p>\n

\"PDJust don’t go to the fourth floor.Roadside Attractions<\/p>\n

DeMonaco wanted to find somewhere to film the movie that looked both lived-in and mysterious. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of these intangible things that you know it when you see it,\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cI needed something that was ominous and large and somewhat imposing, but also had a warmth inside that I wanted to portray a little bit to go against the creepy nature of what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the horror maestro, who hails from Staten Island, had his heart set on filming in New Jersey. <\/p>\n

He wanted to film in a building where his cast could play residents of the home and the production would not have to move from location to location.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Jersey has a great tax credit for movies and I wanted to shoot in the tri-state area because I could pull on the great theater community from New York, and even Jersey has a good theater community,\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cWe knew to populate the home and its residents, we wanted really good, seasoned actors, so I didn\u2019t want to leave. But we couldn\u2019t find the home. We couldn\u2019t find it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, until location manager Henry Winnik brought the Saint Francis Residential Community<\/a> to the director\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\"JD\"James DeMonaco, who is known for “The Purge” movies, directed “The Home.”Dia Dipasupil | Getty Images<\/p>\n

The stately senior living facility sat on 20 acres in Denville<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since 1895, when it opened as a health resort, it had been the property of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother<\/a>, a Franciscan Catholic congregation currently based in Wisconsin. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I got out of the car, as soon as we were driving up to it, I was like \u2018oh, this is it,\u2019\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cIt was immense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the Diamond Spring Road facility had recently closed, giving the movie free rein.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no parameters, no restrictions as to where we can go,\u201d the director says, and Denville welcomed the production. \u201cWe found everything on site. It was so enormous. They even had a church inside, which we used. I couldn\u2019t believe the size of the place, it was really a city. It must have been a great place.\u201d <\/p>\n

Besides individual rooms in the facility, the movie showcases its many common areas, like the ballroom and commissary. <\/p>\n

At the time of the filming, the Saint Francis grounds, once home to Saint Francis Sanitarium, had been there for 127 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it was empty, it was quite creepy in an odd way because we knew it had been around so long and we saw there was a lot of accoutrements from the residents who left,\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cThere were plaques on the walls of all the people who died there over the years … There was a cemetery on site, which was kind of odd and ominous, so it all fed the mood of making a horror film, too, which was great.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PDThe entrance to Saint Francis Residential Community in 2018. The facility was demolished not long after “The Home” filmed there.Google<\/p>\n

Now \u201cThe Home\u201d stands as an intimate \u2014 albeit bloody \u2014 record of a piece of New Jersey history. <\/p>\n

Just months after the movie filmed at Saint Francis Residential Community in 2022, Denville announced that Springpoint Senior Living, its new owner, would start demolition of the property. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Home<\/a>,\u201d distributed by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions, spent $11.7 million filming in New Jersey<\/a>, the state Economic Development Authority told NJ Advance Media when the movie\u2019s trailer was released. The production received a $4.1 million tax credit.<\/p>\n

Other filming locations included a private home in Nutley; Woodland Park\u2019s Garret Mountain Reservation, Rifle Camp Park and a Mobil gas station in the same town; the Madison Hotel in Morris County (between Madison and Morristown); and a storefront on Elizabeth Avenue in Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

Davidson, who became a household name as a cast member on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d before leaving the show in 2022, has filmed other movies in New Jersey. <\/p>\n

His latest, \u201cRiff Raff<\/a>,\u201c in which he and Bill Murray play gangsters, was released in February. He also filmed the 2023 movie \u201cDumb Money<\/a>\u201d locally.<\/p>\n

\"PD\"You’d also put on protective eyewear if you’d gone through the ordeal Pete Davidson experiences at Green Meadows Retirement Home. Dia Dipasupil | Getty ImagesPete Davidson: Horror hero<\/p>\n

Davidson previously starred in the ensemble of horror comedy \u201cBodies Bodies Bodies<\/a>\u201d (2022), but this is his first lead role in a horror film. <\/p>\n

The majority of \u201cThe Home\u201d centers on his character\u2019s experience at Green Meadows Retirement Home. The story unfolds as he walks its long hallways, interacting with its residents, on edge as he struggles to get a single night\u2019s sleep in the restless place. <\/p>\n

As Max, Davidson is a young man who grew up with a foster family (Princeton native Jessica Hecht<\/a> plays his foster mother) and is now haunted by his past, especially the loss of his brother Luke.<\/p>\n

Max, a graffiti artist, ends up at the senior home as a way to avoid jail time after being arrested. Thanks to some help from his foster father (Victor Williams), he is instead sent to work at Green Meadows as part of his community service. He becomes the live-in super, tasked with cleaning and garbage collection. <\/p>\n

He gets a warm welcome from residents like Lou (John Glover), a veteran stage actor who teaches drama classes. <\/p>\n

But right away, things seem off. <\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just the whole \u201cnever go to the fourth floor\u201d thing.<\/p>\n

A doctor at the facility (Bruce Altman) makes a creepy remark about Max having \u201cinteresting eyes.\u201d There\u2019s also all the unexplained shrieking going on upstairs. <\/p>\n

\"PDPete Davidson’s eye features prominently in the horror movie.Roadside Attractions<\/p>\n

Max bonds with one resident named Norma (Mary Beth Peil) over their shared loss of loved ones. Like Max, she\u2019s haunted, and not just by her own grief. She feels compelled to give her new friend a warning. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something very wrong with this place,\u201d she tells him. \u201cSomething terribly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeMonaco, 55, didn\u2019t meet fellow Staten Islander Davidson through the casting process for the movie. He\u2019d already known him for more than 15 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Pete before he was Pete Davidson,\u201d says the director, whose first produced script, 17 years before \u201cThe Purge<\/a>\u201d (2013), was \u201cJack<\/a>\u201d (1996). (The movie, directed by Francis Ford Coppola<\/a>, stars Robin Williams and is decidedly not in the horror realm.)<\/p>\n

As a young teen, Davidson \u2014 now 31 and expecting his first child<\/a> \u2014 worked as a busboy at a local Italian restaurant DeMonaco frequented. They stayed friends over the years, and when DeMonaco needed a lead for his horror film, he knew Davidson would be right for the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hope people see it, because I think Pete is great at the action horror of it all,\u201c he says. \u201dIt kind of goes bonkers in the last 30 minutes. There\u2019s a big twist. I want people to see if they can guess the twist.” <\/p>\n

\"JDWriter-director James DeMonaco with Pete Davidson this week at the premiere of “The Home” in New York. They’ve known each other for more than 15 years.Dia Dipasupil | Getty ImagesReal-life Jersey haunting <\/p>\n

DeMonaco says filming the frenzied end of the movie was \u201ctruly a blast.\u201d <\/p>\n

He intentionally saved those scenes for later in production.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all were waiting to shoot that,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

However, filming at the Saint Francis building in Denville brought some unscripted scares.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe place, we started to feel, was haunted,\u201d DeMonaco says. <\/p>\n

He points to one \u201cweird incident.\u201d It happened when they were filming in the room belonging to Max\u2019s new friend Norma.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy crew found a music box underneath the bed that was already existing in the room, and it played three songs,\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cAnd one of the songs was the song that Norma sings at the piano. And then we found the plaque in the room of all the people who died there, and there was a woman named Norma. So now the crew actually started to believe that this place was haunted. So it was kind of fun. That set the mood also.\u201d <\/p>\n

COVID, climate change and longevity<\/p>\n

The swirl of ideas that became \u201cThe Home\u201d surfaced during the early social distancing days of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

DeMonaco wrote the film with his best friend Adam Cantor<\/a>, another Staten Islander.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the same pod,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were only seeing each other because his boys played with my daughter, and so we were hanging out in my backyard. And we\u2019re both quite neurotic, and we were talking about COVID, and at the same time there was a lot of issues at the elder care facilities<\/a> in New York \u2014 with Andrew Cuomo<\/a> and how he handled the pandemic<\/a> … We were talking about that a lot. We both had strange experiences with people in our families at elder care facilities.”<\/p>\n

DeMonaco\u2019s wife had been urging him to use his extra free time during the pandemic to try yoga \u2014 \u201cI eat a lot Italian food and I\u2019m not that healthy and limber,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Heeding her suggestion brought an influx of health-related videos his way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy YouTube feed, or algorithm, started to be inundated with all kinds of longevity videos and supplements to live longer,\u201d DeMonaco says. \u201cAnd I found I became intrigued with what I noticed was this kind of obsession \u2014 it seemed like in America, maybe across the world \u2014 with living longer and longevity.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Home\u201d plays on all of these elements while also touching on climate change. <\/p>\n

The movie isn\u2019t concerned with the finer points of global warming, but instead what it has to say about the actions of older generations and how they are affecting the lives of young people and future generations. <\/p>\n

A \u201cgenerational battle\u201d in the film symbolically expresses that reality, becoming the overarching theme, DeMonaco says.<\/p>\n

\"PDDavidson’s Max finds himself in the middle of a “generational battle.” Roadside Attractions<\/p>\n

Cantor and DeMonaco found horror inspiration from movies like Roman Polanski\u2019s \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby<\/a>\u201d (1968), Robert Altman\u2019s \u201c3 Women<\/a>\u201d (1977) and Michael Winner\u2019s \u201cThe Sentinel<\/a>\u201d (1977). <\/p>\n

\u201cI watched a lot of \u201970s psychological horror,\u201d DeMonaco says. <\/p>\n

Misdirection, skillfully deployed in many a horror film, also becomes a theme in \u201cThe Home,\u201d through commentary on modern life and the perils of boredom:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all derive pleasure from certain things that maybe we shouldn\u2019t be deriving pleasure from,\u201d DeMonaco says. <\/p>\n

Seeing Pete Davidson scared out of his mind? <\/p>\n

Apparently not one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Home<\/a>,\u201d rated R, runs 1 hour and 37 minutes and is in theaters<\/a> Friday, July 25.<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting NJ.com<\/a> with a subscription.<\/p>\n

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com<\/a> and followed at @AmyKup<\/a> on Twitter\/X, @amykup.bsky.social<\/a> on Bluesky and @kupamy<\/a> on Instagram<\/a> and Threads<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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