After his father is killed in a car crash, Jack travels home to Colorado to help nurse his mother (who was injured in the crash) back to health. There, he uncovers long buried secrets and lies within his family history, his parents, his friends and his very identity.

Jack (Rory Culkin) is an intense guy. A casual exchange at work easily diverges into a heated exchange over semantics and idioms, leaving his coworker exasperated. Shortly thereafter he is told that his mother and father were in a car accident, killing his father and leaving his mother slightly injured. Jack’s fiancee, Cleo (Britt Robertson), urges him to go back home and tend to his recovering mother Teresa (Lin Shaye). It is after Jack’s arrival that he begins to slowly unravel a mystery that his parents had kept from him since birth. To complicate matters a new neighbor, Duncan (Louis Hunter) moves in next door and begins to make unwanted advances on the confused Jack. As the mystery unfurls we see Jack’s best friend Shanda (Daveigh Chase) realizing that her BFF is in danger and in need of rescue.

Jack Goes home is one heavy movie. From the opening scene we understand that what we are about to experience is of grave importance. The m0vie begins with a car accident and death to give you an idea. The measured pacing of the plot insures that we savor every nuance, and catch every beat in the arduous storyline that follows Jack unearthing his demons. Tonally the film is oppressively consistent, giving us little respite from the dower proceedings. A very welcome cameo by the wonderful Natasha Lyonne as Nancy adds some lightness to the film, though her scene is entirely too short.

While Jack Goes Home is not a good film, it is certainly not a bad one. There is actually a lot going for this Hitchcockian mystery. Writer, Director Thomas Dekker has a good grip on his actors and knows how to build a tangled web of a plot. However, the film could have easily used a little trimming, perhaps a few less repetitive scenes that drive particular points home. The performances across the board are more than acceptable with a few stand outs. To see Lin Shaye in a film is to simply enjoy what you are watching. Shaye is always a fabulous character actress to watch and this film gives her plenty of scenes to chew the scenery as the vitriolic matriarch. Culkin is also a revelation as Jack. His performance is not only fearless, but fully believable as the aloof loner unraveling his past. The scenes between these two actors are particularly fun to watch as they both go toe-to-toe and nail it. 

In the end, Jack makes it home (spoiler alert) and we have taken a disturbing trek through a supremely dysfunctional family’s closet of skeletons. While the film may not offer you any respite from the gratuitous melodrama, the performances and a few deft touches in direction, make the movie worth seeing.

Jack Goes Home is In Select Theaters and On Demand today.