Amazing Fantasy Fest 2025 Coverage
Cain Came Home review
Twin brothers deal with their haunted childhood home in very different ways.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Cain Came Home
Directed by Brett Glassberg and Kennedy J. Baruch
Written by Brett Glassberg
Starring Brett Glassberg
Cain Came Home Review
Capping off day five of this year’s Amazing Fantasy Fest was the surrealist ghost story Cain Came Home. It was proceeded by a trio of short films…the first two of which fit the theme of the feature. The third was rescheduled so the cast and crew could make the screening.
The first two shorts were, fittingly, surrealist works. A micro short (Invaders) featuring some bugs led off the evening. It was followed by a five minute piece titled “There Was” from the same director (Amanda Besl) as the previous short. There Was brings a specific childhood memory to life with repeating dialog and interesting imagery. Besl did a Q&A about both films after they ran.
The third, and longest, was the crime comedy Gaspers. Yeah…it didn’t really fit the theme of the evening, but it had some strong work and good laughs. It also had a large group of people on hand to provide a Q&A. Gaspers had some fun moments, but it really didn’t fit the mood of the block. Understandable given it was rescheduled from a different block.
The closing feature of day five also had a Q&A following its screening. It made for a lengthy block…anchored by a more than worthwhile feature film. Cain Came Home wears its influences proudly. Its credits include a special thanks section with the names of David Lynch and other surrealist masters. It’s a nice gesture…but it’s not necessary. Cain Came Home may have been inspired by other films…but it crafts a fully original experience. A ghost story that transcends time and space…viewed by twins in very different (but increasingly similar) ways.
The story of Cain Came Home is a deceptively simple one. A man returns to his childhood home following the murder of his parents at the hands of his twin brother. We see that play out early in the film. It ends with the brother taking his own life. The surviving brother plans to clean out the house and wash his hands of the whole ordeal. He’s not the most sentimental of people. He also doesn’t know that the house is haunted. His twin brother knew. And he documented it in a journal. When the things that happened to one brother begin to happen to the other…he begins to wonder if he’s heading down the same path.
Cain Came Home has some cool tricks up its sleeve. The house isn’t just haunted in a traditional sense…it appears to exist in some kind of a time distortion. Things that the brother experiences repeat in different ways with no one else remembering that they had already happened. A childhood friend stops by to comfort him…repeatedly…with no memory of having done so before. She doesn’t always dress, look or act the same way. As if the house is touching on a multiverse of possibilities. Oh…and there are also ghosts in the house. Or demons. Or something.
The story has a lot of fun with the time slippages even as the story surrounding is growing increasingly dark. Glassberg is excellent in his dual role…and as writer/co-director of the project. He’s created something uniquely interesting. There are a lot of twist and turns as the house has its way with the story. The story contains personal character moments that shed light on his deceased brother and the nature of the surviving brother’s isolation from his family. It even finds a creepy way for the brothers to seemingly communicate with each other after the murder/suicide that kicks off the story. A childhood game of hide the penny continues beyond the mortal coil…it seems. Or is the house just eating away at the last family member? The one who thought he got out.
There are plenty of answers here…depending on what you want to believe. A major narrative turn towards the end opens the door to even more possibilities. Anything is possible in a place where anything can happen…and then happen again differently. Cain Came Home isn’t like any ghost story you’ve ever seen before. It opens an infinite number of doors to an infinite number of realities. It might seem scary to not know which is real. The scariest thing is that they might all be.
Scare Value
Cain Came Home is a bit of a mind-bender. It involves time distortions, surrealist imagery and something even bigger than that which we won’t spoil here. The story of twin brothers who deal with their haunted house in markedly different ways features several fun twists and turns along the way. Glassberg is excellent in the dual role…especially when the world around him starts to go off the rails. A crowd pleaser at this year’s festival.
