The Front Room (2024), directed by Max & Sam Eggers, stars Brandy Norwood, Kathryn Hunter, Andrew Burnap, and Neal Huff. The film tells the story of the newly pregnant Belinda (Norwood) and her husband Norman (Burnap) after they move into their dream home. Soon after, a family member passes away, forcing the couple to begin caring for Norman’s estranged stepmother, Solange (Hunter). They soon learn that they bit off more than they can chew when it becomes clear the Solange is trying to instill Confederate-inspired religious values upon the family. After Brandy begins to resist this manipulation, she realizes that Solange will stop at nothing to remain the ultimate matriarch of her beloved family.

Although I appreciate Brandy’s return to the horror genre following her iconic (for genre fans) turn as Karla Wilson in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), she doesn’t bring anything particularly new to this role. Granted, I think this has more to do with the weak script and less about the effort that went into her performance. Thankfully, Kathryn Hunter’s disturbing and sometimes hilarious performance steals the show. Her deranged southern drawl and manic stares lead to something that almost reaches icon status. I also found giving the character two black canes, an arched back, and an all-black outfit brilliant. It makes the character look like a black widow spider, foreshadowing her creeping actions throughout the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, the performance is once again held back by the weak script. It’s fantastic acting, but on paper, the character isn’t anything special; just the typical “senior citizen from hell” trope. 

The film’s biggest issue is that it’s a tonal rollercoaster. There’s nothing wrong with making a “dark comedy” or “nightmare comedy,” but instead of feeling balanced, The Front Room feels choppy in terms of tone. In other words, instead of feeling like a deliciously blended genre milkshake, this feels like the ingredients were pulled out of the fridge/freezer and never mixed. When the film builds a funny moment, it’s undercut by a confusingly dark resolution. When it builds a suspenseful moment, it’s undercut by an inappropriately funny resolution. This may have been intended to be subversive, but instead, it just makes each sequence feel a bit disappointing because the script constantly undercuts its scenes with endings that don’t track tonally. It also doesn’t help that the marketing has had no idea how to sell the film, causing the viewer to go in with expectations that cause the tone to initially come off as jarring. 

Overall, this is a surprisingly boring horror release from A24. Love or hate their films, they always seem to take risks or are built around an irresistible original premise. The Front Room has almost none of that. Running at 86 minutes, it still feels much too slow, especially in a first act that essentially just lazily trods through the genre norms. There’s almost no thematic substance and the conflicts essentially boil down to Kathryn Hunter yelling “You and I are a lot alike” and Brandy responding “No we’re not!” It’s a horror-comedy that isn’t funny enough for regular laughs and isn’t scary enough to keep a person awake at night. That being said, there’s a certain “entertaining failure”  element here that saves it from being a totally forgettable experience. Throw in Hunter’s wonderfully evil performance, and I can see this having slight cult classic status. C