HOMESTEAD REVIEW

“There’s no way around the fact that this is merely the set-up for a TV series, and it really feels like it.”

Distributor Angel Studios hasn’t been around that long, but in the time since it hit theaters by distributing episodes of the streaming series “The Chosen,” it’s attempted to release different genres of film. After releasing two biopics in 2024 (the excellent Cabrini and not so bad Bonhoeffer), Angel Studios pivots again to make a film that in normal cases would be considered a genre film, though it’s handled more like a TV drama… for reasons that will become obvious enough by the end.

Based on the Black Autumn novel series by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross, Homestead sets up its “world” early on with the explosion of a nuclear bomb on a boat off the coast of California, knocking out the country’s power and sending the American populace into a frenzy to stock up on food and supplies. Cut to the Rockies where the Eriksson family is trying to survive, eventually ending up at the compound of Neal McDonough’s Ian Ross where supplies are dwindling, making them hesitant in letting others into their “homestead.”

Bailey Chase plays Jeff Eriksson, an ex Special Ops agent, who takes what is happening very seriously, using his military background to defend his family and his new home, including his wife Tara (Kearran Giovanni). Their teen son Abe (Tyler Lofton) accidentally shoots an intruder, which leads to all sorts of other problems for the Homestead, especially when men claiming to be the local authorities show up to commandeer their guns and supplies. Amidst all of that, there’s also a sweet romance between Abe with Ian Ross’ daughter Claire (Olivia Sanabia), but that just adds to the erratic tone that permeates the film where nothing significant really happens for quite some time.

Director Ben Smallbone doesn’t do a particularly good job with this material, though it’s not like he has much to work with, the script written by Jason Ross and three “staff writers” (according to iMDB) offering so little solid characterization to make any of the characters less one-dimensional. He does have this fantastic location that makes up the Homestead, an enormous mansion at the top of a hill, so he uses any chance he can to throw in a drone shot of that location to try to make the scale of the film seem larger than it actually is, but that only goes so far.

Other than McDonough, few of the cast deliver the quality of acting performances you might expect from a major theatrical release, with generally weak delivery that makes it feel like everything is just “deliver your lines and move on.” Dawn Olivieri has some decent moments as Ian’s wife Jenna, but otherwise, these performances offer very little emotion or energy to make the characters any more interesting.

On top of that, the film’s general ethos that’s been pushed heavily in the marketing is that it seem to be saying that whenever something isn’t going your way, one needs to pull out their guns, even though that isn’t nearly as prominent in the actual film. Also, for a “faith-based” film, it’s a full hour before “G-d” is even mentioned, there’s one suggestion to pray over the dwindling food, and then it’s back to the guns.

All of these obvious issues are exacerbated by the movie being released in the same year as Alex Garner’s far superior Civil War, while integrating some of the concepts as Joshua Oppenheimer’srecent post-Apocalypse musical (no joke!) The End. Such similarities make you wonder whether all of this is coming out of what happened during the early days of the COVID pandemic, but to be fair, the first installment of the “Black Autumn” series preceded COVID by a full year.

Homestead ends up feeling like something you might see on television. My friend and colleague Brett Arnold would probably say that it’s “not a real movie,” and in this case, he would be 100% correct. That becomes even more obvious when you get to the end of the film and learn that everything you’ve watched is merely a set-up for an ongoing series ala “The Chosen.” That’s likely to be the most irksome thing about the movie for anyone not realize that the movie isn’t telling a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. They’ll be miffed when the film essentially leaves you with a “to be continued” montage of scenes from the upcoming series.

As much as Homestead might mean well, there’s no way around the fact that it’s merely the set-up for a TV series, and it really feels like it. There’s nothing about this movie that might get anyone but fans of the book interested in following the characters’ story any further. Either way, it definitely wasn’t for me.

Rating: 5/10

Homestead opens nationwide on December 20.