The movie Homestead was quite possibly the worst movie I have ever watched in my entire life. The title of this story is exactly how I would describe what I sat through for 110 minutes of my life.
I was forced to go watch this movie by my boyfriend, who was ecstatic to see this action-packed post-apocalyptic movie. We went to see Homestead at the Jordan Creek movie theater shortly after Christmas. When watching the trailer, I was slightly confused, as there seemed to be a few different plot lines occurring, but nonetheless, we went to see it.
Homestead is directed by Ben Smallbone and written by Phillip Abraham, Leah Bateman, and Jason Ross. It was announced in January 2024 and was first released to the public on December 20th, 2024. It was originally displayed as a blend of survival, drama, and suspense, but none of that was delivered through the screen. Many of its characters were one-dimensional and seemed to be starring in different films.
About halfway through the film, I checked my phone, realizing the movie only had about 30 minutes left, and was puzzled over what the film was even about and how they were going to wrap up the 30 different plot lines in the last half of the movie.
When writing this story, it was hard to even know where to begin, as the movie had no meaning or depth and honestly left me feeling angry at the fact that I had spent over an hour of my life watching the many plot lines that began…and then ultimately were never followed up on.
The movie begins with two guys on a small sailboat and a larger ship chasing after them. After a few seconds of yelling, the younger of the two goes down into the small cabin below and hits a red button, which we can only assume is a button that purposely sets off this nuclear explosion. These men and the group who is supposedly “attacking the United States” are never mentioned again.
Bailey Chase, who plays Jeff Erikson in this film, is supposedly an ex-military commander who has been suspecting a nuclear bomb will drop somewhere near the U.S. and has a deal with Ian Ross (played by Neal McDonough) that he will come to his “homestead” and protect it, if his family can live there to protect themselves. Against whom, you might ask? WE DONT KNOW. The film fails to even explain who is attacking the United States, and even why or how everyone and their mom wants to come to this homestead.
When rushing out of the busy city, Tara Erikson insists on stopping at the store and grabbing medicine for her daughter, but we never find out what said medicine is for, and it is never mentioned again.
The youngest Erikson, Georgie, draws a picture of the nuclear explosion before it even happens. We have to assume that she can see the future; this is mentioned in the trailer for the next episode but is never explained in this episode. Tara Erikson struggles throughout the movie to connect with Georgie, and she mentions slightly how she might be adopted… but like most things in this movie, we had to infer that because it is never explained.
Abe Erikson might be the only interesting character in this movie. In the beginning, when his character is introduced, a tense relationship with his dad is present but never occurs again… until suddenly he becomes a sniper for his dad and accidentally shoots a hunter who is on the Ross family’s land. Why are random people hunting on this land in what seems to be a national crisis? WE DONT KNOW. He also has a romantic relationship with Claire Ross as they first meet when the Erikson family gets to the homestead and continue to hang out together throughout the film. At one point, Ian Ross tells Claire he doesn’t like her interacting with Abe Erikson, but after his one sentence mentioning it, you guessed it, IT’S NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.
The McNultys are another family who is escaping their household to come to the Ross homestead. Evie is Ian’s sister, and her husband calls her as soon as the bomb goes off and tells her to go to the homestead. One of the most confusing parts of this movie (surprising because there’s so many) was how they all covered their faces and were careful not to breathe the air when leaving the house, but when they got to the homestead, which seemed to be not that far away, it was all sunshine, and the air was fine. When her husband arrives days later, he tells all these lies about a help crew dropping off food and water to those in need, but is later outed by his wife, who says he takes medication but hasn’t… so apparently, he’s delusional and crazy now?? Yet another unneeded scene that adds useless and confusing plot lines to the film.
The next family who is escaping to the homestead is the Baumgartner family. They are friends with the Rosses but are left outside the gates of the homestead along with many other families. They beg Ian to let them in, but Ian insists they can’t let in the line of people standing outside the gates because they don’t have enough crops to feed all of these mouths for the next three years. I know. Confusing. While the Baumgartners are escaping their house, they rush out as the house next to them is being broken into with guns. Why, you may ask? I was asking myself the same thing. As they run to their truck and try to escape these violent intruders, you can see people lined up on the streets of this residential neighborhood living in tents and fighting with each other. Why are they camping outside in the dangerous nuclear air instead of staying in their homes? Good question. WE DONT KNOW.
Towards the end of the movie, there is a SWAT group that continually comes to the gates of the homestead and tells them that they need to open up the gates and share with the entire city because it’s not fair. Since when in life has anything been “fair”? GROW. UP. In one of the last scenes, both sides have their guns pointed, ready to shoot, for what reason? Who the hell knows at this point. Ian Ross gets shot by this SWAT group. Confusing, right? Since they want to use his resources. Then the SWAT group just promptly drives away. No fight. Nothing else. He just gets killed, and they drive away.
Ian is rushed to the on-site hospital and is in a coma. While he is in this coma, his wife, Jenna Ross, lets all of the families into the homestead like she’s been wanting to do throughout the entire film. All of a sudden, this movie becomes a Christian movie about faith, but just in the last five minutes.
I think the most frustrating part of this film is that when it ends, it is revealed that this is a series of episodes. You are told to scan a QR code and “pay it forward” by paying $15 so someone else can watch the Homestead film, and then you will be able to access the rest of the episodes. First of all, this monstrosity of a movie continues for multiple episodes. Second of all, “paying it forward” is usually referred to when you are giving back to the community, NOT paying for someone else to see a stupid movie. I think I would’ve appreciated this more if the money you paid for the next episodes went to charity, but no. Third of all, how do we know this money is even going to be used to pay for someone’s movie ticket? My movie ticket was not paid for… HOW. ARE. PEOPLE. FALLING. FOR. THIS.
Overall, this is quite literally the worst movie I’ve ever seen and would not recommend anyone to see it. Genuinely watching it makes me want to stand outside the movie theater and warn people to leave before wasting their time.
