“A house like that can be the basis for the rest of your life.”
Directed by Oscar-winning special effects guru Chris Walas and credited to none other than Mel Brooks as executive producer, The homeless person is one of those movies that most people have probably never heard of, but enjoys an outrageous reputation among those who do to have.
This is mainly due to a bravura starring role from fan favorite Bill Paxton, who rarely gets this much screen time in a feature film. He’s also surrounded by other character actors, including Colleen Camp, Michael Ironside, and a truly fantastic performance by Marshall Bell as the eponymous drifter. However, the real stars of the film are not the human actors.
What stands out instead is the production design, especially of the house where most of the action takes place, as it gradually goes from dilapidated to tidy and much more dilapidated, as are the many extremely gross special effects – perhaps no surprise given Walas’ own filmography, which includes work on Gremlins and The fly. However, the real MVP of the whole picture is probably Christopher Young’s strangely organic score, which manages to draw a perfect line between cartoonish and disturbing, capturing the film’s tone more fully than the rest of the film ever could.
Despite his lazy catchphrase and key art (“He’s not home alone!”), The homeless person does not share any meaningful DNA with the referenced image. Instead, it is a spiritual sibling of The Burbswith his story of yuppie paranoia in the same direction and in different directions at the same time. The homeless person begins with Paxton’s Graham Krakowski buying (under some duress) a fixer-upper house across the street from a vacant lot.
On his first day there, he sees a hobo who lives on the property leaving his kitchen. Thus begins his descent into paranoia. I have said The Burbs, but the late ’80s and early ’90s were a ripe era for yuppie neuroses, especially around home ownership. From overt comedies like The money pit to composites like this and The Burbs to outright horror movies like Poltergeist – the idea that we (meaning values of “we” which generally include relatively affluent white suburbs) bought more than we bargained for when we bought a house was a fixture of movie theater screens at the time.
And for most of the term, The homeless person is exactly that. Krakowski becomes increasingly convinced of theories about this drifter who alternately comes across as believable and bizarre as the audience is swept along. Is the bum really tricking him, or is he just paranoid? Or is the bum messing with him now because Krakowski started harassing the bum out of the misguided sense that because the guy was homeless (and yes, honestly, looked really gross), he was also a threat?
The film is at its best during these moments, when we’re not sure what’s happening, and our protagonist’s fears steadily sabotage every aspect of his (perhaps, it might be suggested, already sabotaged) life. After a while, it becomes clear even to him that the bum must be a projection of some deeper problem, and he worries that he’s doing these things to himself when he’s asleep – maybe even going so far. like committing murder.
At this point the film switches from the yuppie paranoia of the first act to a pitch-black comedy about untreated mental illness. It works less well here, but it still works, and Paxton’s performance is part of what helps ground it. Although he is put through the wringer here, he plays it much more subdued than usual for him, and the result is all the better for it.
It’s only where most films would probably have ended – when Krakowski is apprehended for his crimes and brought to justice – does this film begin its bizarre third act. Finally exonerated by a tragic coincidence, Krakowski flees his old life and retreats to a small trailer park in the middle of nowhere, befriending a blind man named X-Ray and living with an amorous neighbor. Still convinced that he is his own worst enemy, he handcuffs himself to the bed every night so that he cannot get into mischief.
Yet things keep happening. Because it turns out that the bum is real and has followed him. Indeed, the Drifter is a disgraced former professor who uses Krakowski to prove his twisted theories of human behavior. He suggests that Krakowski is only really human now that everything has been taken from him, and it seems true enough that our protagonist is much happier in the trailer park than he ever was in his more “successful” life.
That still doesn’t mean he’s happy to have a murderous goofball following him, and the two end up in a knockdown, drag-out at a roadside haunted house attraction, which is an absolute delight. Sure, literally nothing that happens from the end of Krakowski’s trial until the credits roll makes sense, but by then you’re probably either along for the ride or you’re not, and at least it sticks to the live-action cartoon tone that’s kept the movie from the earliest days. built moments.
Is The homeless person a forgotten classic? No. The themes are too mundane for that and it’s not really interested in exploring them anyway, opting instead for broad caricatures and brutal effects whenever it can. But it’s understated enough to keep you going, delivering a satisfying blend of satire, horror and comedy that looks and sounds nice and sharp on a solid new Blu-ray from Arrow Videowhere you can really appreciate all those gnarly effects, set designs and that great score.
In addition to his work as a Monster Ambassador here at Signal Horizon, Orrin Gray is the author of several books about monsters, ghosts, and sometimes the ghosts of monsters, and a byline movie writer on Unwinnable and others. His stories have appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Ellen Datlow’s Best horror of the year and he is the author of two collections of essays on vintage horror film.
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