The Front Room (2024)

Kathryn Hunter is doing something wild in The Front Room, and the movie keeps answering her with gross-out messes instead of actual scares. She plays Solange, a dying stepmother who moves in with her stepson Norman and his very pregnant wife Belinda, played by Brandy, on the promise of a big inheritance. They’re broke enough to agree. Solange takes the front room, the one meant to be the nursery. She decides the baby should be renamed after Norman’s late father. She fills the house with her own furniture and her own crowd, and Norman signs off on all of it without asking Belinda. Max and Sam Eggers, in their first feature, have a sharp premise about an in-law who won’t leave, then lean on cheap shocks instead of dread. Critics gave it 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences liked it even less. A 3.0 because Hunter is the only scary thing in the house. $4,692 says the next relative who asks to stay with you for just a few days gets a hotel recommendation instead.

What works: Kathryn Hunter is a memorably creepy force as Solange, and the setup about an inheritance with strings attached is a smart hook.

What doesn’t: The scares lean on gross-out messes rather than dread, and Norman is so passive that the story’s tension goes slack.

Who it’s for: Kathryn Hunter completists and anyone who has survived a very long visit from a difficult relative.