You know how random people on the internet seem to like something and you give it a try? Well, this was Homestead for me. I had seen a bit of a buzz around it and thought I would check it out.
We’re only one month into 2025 and this is the second movie I’ve reviewed that is going to get zero stars! The first was Section 31, and honestly, this might be worse!
Homestead stars Neal McDonough, Dawn Olivieri, Susan Misner, Currie Graham, Baily Chase, Jesse Hutch, and Kearran Giovanni. I’m not going to list the director or writers, because it’s just not worth it.
The Story
From the plot, it sounded interesting.
Amid chaos, ex-Green Beret joins prepper compound; love grows, truths arise, and a community unites.
We open on a boat heading to the coast of Florida. The boat is loaded with nuclear material and is going to be detonated, causing panic across America. The coast is toast, but in middle-America there is hope for survival. Again, interesting, right?
There is a family, I don’t know their names, because I just don’t care. The dad is hired to serve as protection for a homestead owner, for when something like this happens. The family is made up of a white guy, a black lady, two step-kids, and an adopted white daughter. They didn’t have one in a wheelchair, so no DEI Bingo for this movie.
McDonough is the landowner and is pretty much self-sustained. They have food storage, they own a farm, and everything they will need until FEMA gets there.
We soon learn that the dad, who’s ex-army or special forces, is pretty ruthless. There are neighbors outside of the homestead, which has a fence, and they need food. The dad tells McDonough to ignore them, but McDonough’s wife helps them.
The Power Of Prayer
The black son of the family ends up shooting someone on the land. The guy ends up in the medical area, but the shooting is fatal and he dies. The black kid is racked with guilt, to the point where he looks like he is going to commit suicide.
How does he get over this? He visits McDonough’s daughter, who is a bit of a love interest for him. He says how bad he feels about killing that guy, so she says a prayer. She then shows him some flowers that only bloom at night.
Now he’s cured! Literally, from ‘I’m going to kill myself’ to ‘Flowers are amazing and so is prayer’ in the space of about 2 minutes! My eyes were rolling back into my head so much I could see the skid marks in my pants.
What Will Save Us? *spoilers*
Homestead gets worse. Towards the end, McDonough gets shot and is out for 10 days. In the meantime his wife, who was going to leave him, decides to let everyone in. She is the one with the power of kindness.
The funny thing is, the power of kindness is going to kill everyone. McDonough had a plan to ration the food, to have enough weapons, and planned to make it so everyone in the compound could survive.
Because Little Miss Kindness lets in all the neighbors, it’ll mean the food will run out and everyone will be dead in a short while. This isn’t shown though, there’s a voiceover by her, saying how she’s kind and saved everyone. There are no consequences to her actions and everything just works out.
Moral Choices
From the outset, all of the characters are just annoying apart from McDonough. There is another family trying to get to the compound, a mother, two kids and a dog. They are in a Telsa and the battery runs out. How do they get over this?
They stop at a petrol station or gas station, and what do they do? The mother gets the kids to get in another car and they steal it. There’s a drawn-out scene with the owner of the stolen car who is clearly now in trouble. Not to fear though, he’s only an extra, the main thing is the main characters got away. With a stolen car and morals intact.
Overall
Homestead is from the perspective of McDonough’s wife, which is pretty stupid since she isn’t the main character. The good thing is that she’s the one who saves the day with kindness and love until they run out of food.
As I said, there isn’t a likable character in this movie, everyone is an asshole and I kind of wanted them to die. Even if they were all shot, it would have been OK, prayer would have saved them.
While looking up Homestead, I found this was a movie to kick off a TV series. There’s a post-final credit scene that teases some of the show. I cannot imagine anything worse than watching a series of this. In fact, since I have a moment…
If this show were to appear on my TV, I would unplug said TV and put it in the car, with a baseball bat and shovel. I will drive to a deserted field, proceed to beat the TV, aka Office Space, then dig a hole and bury it.
Homestead is produced by Angel Studios, a new one on me. They are known for producing Christian-themed movies. If I had taken 5 minutes to research this, I would have stayed away from this movie. My bad for walking into it blind.
As with so many movies, the idea of Homestead is great and could have made a good thriller. Instead, we learn that everything is fine as long as you pray about it and be kind.
Homestead should be Sectioned 31.
