Brandy Norwood steps back into the horror spotlight 26 years after starring in the sequel to the ’90s slasher hit I Know What You Did Last Summer, hoping to resurrect her genre cred with The Front Room (2024). Once upon a time, she dodged hooks alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt in a teen-slasher frenzy that had audiences screaming. But this time around, the scares are scarce, and Brandy’s comeback flick fizzles like a damp firecracker.
Brandy’s Belinda is a pregnant mom-to-be, stuck with her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap) in a setup straight out of a horror flick: play caretaker to his creepy stepmother after his father’s passing. Neither of them is happy about the arrangement, but the promise of a substantial financial windfall convinces them to reluctantly take on the task, even though they both harbor significant reservations about the entire situation.
As this new chapter in their lives begins, Norman might as well be a ghost, fading into the background like a forgotten prop. He’s the flimsy thread tying Belinda to her new nightmare: cohabiting with Solange (Kathryn Hunter), a cackling, chaos-sowing stepmother who’s a walking headache.
Their home becomes a battleground for control, with Solange stirring up trouble and vying for Norman’s attention, while he pops in and out like a cameo nobody asked for, leaving Belinda to wrangle the old woman’s unhinged antics alone.
Solange swoops in like a wicked stage diva, stealing every scene as a frail, unhinged old woman who throws the household into chaos. She dismantles the couple’s fragile sense of normalcy, injecting a spark of unpredictability that almost salvages the movie’s otherwise dull and meandering story. However, any hope for genuine scares eventually fades away, leaving us with what feels like a lukewarm thriller.
The movie desperately needed a sinister heartbeat, but instead, it limps along with a whisper. Solange, navigating through the house on her crutches, morphs into a grotesque adult toddler, sprawling on the floor, shrieking like a banshee, hurling tantrums, spewing vomit, and leaving trails of incontinence in her wake.
It’s a bizarre spectacle that teeters between grimly funny and downright exasperating, but the plot? It’s trapped in a claustrophobic loop, stagnating inside the house’s walls with no momentum to break free.
Chained to the thankless role of Belinda, a caretaker whose spark is snuffed out by a script wound tighter than a straitjacket. Brandy clearly has the chops to slay in horror, and you can sense the potential bubbling beneath the surface. But her big return is squandered on a character so underwritten she barely registers, offering little room to shine. The result is a performance that feels far more subdued than it should have been, as she gradually fades into the wallpaper, overshadowed by the movie’s louder and messier elements.
We wanted to like The Front Room, but it’s just so blah, with nothing to pull us in. Solange’s crazy stunts get a few laughs, but that’s it. This isn’t the scary horror ride we signed up for, more like a weird detour that goes nowhere fast.