REVIEW: ‘Old People’ Hit Hard

“Old People” is an interesting name for a horror movie, especially one filled with violence. A Netflix Original horror film, Old People has one hell of a violent opening and plays with expectations on what we expect from the elderly while also offering a fairly on-the-nose commentary on how the older you get, the more you’re forgotten and pushed away. The film is written and directed by Andy Fetscher and stars Adolfo Assor, Melika Foroutan, Louie Betton, Gerhard Bös, Otto Emil Koch, and Otto Emil Koch.

Our point of view in this story is Ella, who is on the way back to her hometown with her kids for her sister’s wedding. The remote little village has changed a lot since she left, and not for the better. All of the village’s young people have long moved away, with the nursery home retirement staff the only ones left behind. Now the village looks cold and sad as only old folks walk the streets or live forgotten by the rest of the world in the nursing home. When a huge thunderstorm hits the little town the night of the wedding, the residents of a retirement home start behaving strangely and the violence wreaks havoc across the village.

Led by a giant of a retiree, a group of elderly patients attacks the young caretakers with horrific brutality. Smashed heads, broken glass, and more. But once the power goes out, the elderly break down the security doors and escape, heading straight to the music they longed to hear at the wedding, leaving Ella and her family to fight.

The film opens with a statement, explaining that the darkness came for the most week among us, leading to violence and death. With an opener that will make you jump back, we’re thrown right into it. Old people are the enemy here, and the film takes us to the start. But after seeing their treatment it’s hard to not see some of their violence, at least that against their caretakers as justified. That said, as the film continues, it becomes clear that the town’s elderly are now driven by rage and violence with no reason for the harm they inflict, at least on the surface. If anything it’s just anger, rage, and fear driving them to their most basal instincts. They were forgotten and so shall the world around them.

Old People is bloody and methodical in its presentation of violence. While the overarching theme of respecting elders and not locking them away in nursing homes to be hidden from your life is there, it’s the heavy-handed delivery of the film’s resolution in the final minutes that makes everything feel awkward when it comes to execution.

That said, you can come into Old People expecting brutal violence and nothing else and have a fine time. The film is non-stop action and that fast-paced style works extremely well to make an entertaining watch. In the violence, you get traditional jump scares and some truly unsettling moments — like an old lady scratching at her face while wearing a dress she stole from a dead woman. And then of course there are the gruesome close-ups of the dead that will make you lurch back.

A clunky narrative that honestly doesn’t mean much thanks to the ending, Old People still offers a violent mess from the people you least expect. That gimmick paired with an hour and 40-minute runtime makes this a great horror watch for the spooky season.

Old People is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.