Review: A nightmarishly good character actor obscures everything else about ‘The Front Room’

“Are you f— kidding me?” a character whispers to herself, disbelievingly, in “The Front Room” (she’s played by singer-actor Brandy Norwood, returning to horror movies 26 years after “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”). Her puzzled reaction sums up the experience of watching the outrageous parade of bodily excretion and malevolent smirks that make up the directorial debut of Max and Sam Eggers, working from a short story by English author Susan Hill. The twin filmmakers are half-siblings to Robert Eggers, a more notable name in genre cinema, responsible for “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.” Yet there are hidden pleasures in this over-the-top, tonally bizarre endeavor by the lesser-known Eggers brothers.

Struggling for money after she leaves her professorship over discrimination, Belinda (Norwood) and her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap), a public defender, are in a bind, one that appears to have a quick fix: After Norman’s father dies, his widow, the über-religious and conniving Solange (Kathryn Hunter), offers to give everything her husband left behind to the couple. The caveat? They must take her in to live with them until her final day.

As someone raised in Solange’s strictly Christian and unapologetically racist household, Norman warns Belinda that his stepmother wouldn’t approve of their interracial marriage. But with a baby on the way, a single income and a house in need of repairs, they accept Solange, a guest who, in time, will insidiously take over their space, thoughts and even the decisions they make as partners.

Hunter’s character is introduced at the funeral covered in a black veil and holding onto two sturdy canes. The sound of those walking sticks against the house’s wooden floors become an unnerving motif. She moves with difficulty, as if awaking from a long slumber. But it’s her high-pitched voice and Southern drawl that complete the façade of harmless and sweet benevolence that initially fools Belinda into trusting her intentions. To make matters worse, Solange believes she holds a special connection to the Holy Spirit that manifests by speaking in tongues.

The frightful premise of “The Front Room” doesn’t nearly prepare you what it delivers: laugh-out-loud punchlines, explosive flatulence and moments of such darkly humorous absurdity that would have a more natural home in a raunchy juvenile comedy. Solange’s disgusting behavior as she torments her housemates is what the Eggers seem to be getting at. She seems to demand as much attention as a newborn infant by weaponizing her exaggerated infirmity.

The perverse playfulness with which Hunter handles even the most grotesque scatological scenes fuels a disturbing yet stellar performance, one that’s far more memorable than the movie as a whole. A revered actor with a long career in the theater and seen in recent films such as “Poor Things” and Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” Hunter is a disruptive force. Meanwhile, Norwood’s wide-eyed reactions to the jaw-dropping boldness of Solange’s antics serve as a potent grounding agent, leaving her in a wholly justified state of perpetual shock . If “The Front Room” packs any surprises, they certainly come in how far Solange is willing to take her foul attacks.

The Eggers ultimately weaken their concentrated dose of WTF midnight-movie fun by attempting to smuggle in a deeper commentary on race and the overbearing presence of the Judeo-Christian worldview over American society. The dreamlike mishmash of religious iconography and in-your-face motherhood imagery that Belinda witnesses in ghostly visions reads as derivative and unoriginal. (Try instead the 2022 Mexican standout “Huesera: The Bone Woman,” a supernatural thriller also about the perils of first-time parenting, in which the metaphors are better embedded into the story’s fabric.)

A familiar resolution deflates the status the movie had earned up until that point as a wildly unpredictable work of trashy cleverness. The contrived third act notwithstanding, expect audiences in movie theaters to engage with “The Front Room” in audible gasps, one nauseating stunt at a time.