Home Sweet Home

"Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place To HIDE."

out of

Talk about bad luck. I first witnessed this atrocity under the title Slasher in the House. Whew. Cheesy. Watching to the end required four intoxicated evenings. About two months later, in a different video store, I rented a film named Home Sweet Home. The box contained no photos and didn't even list the cast. Turned out it was the same movie, edited differently. I'm not sure as to say which version is worse; but this review reflects both, and believe me when I say that no re-editing or name changing can polish this turkey.

I love witnessing the birth of careers, seeing big name Hollywood actors in early roles they hope to forget. Kevin Costner was a hoot in Sizzle Beach U.S.A. (although, he was funnier in Robin Hood). Unfortunately, if watching superstars mold their careers is your cup of tea as well, you'll be extremely disappointed here. Home Sweet Home doesn't even offer third rate hacks such as Robert Z'Dar, Christopher Lambert or Joe Estevez. What we get here is Body By Jake's Jake Stienfeld in one of his BETTER, wait, make that ONLY, roles.

Home follows Stienfeld (listed here as J. Kelly - even HE didn't want credit for this!), an escaped mental patient, who hijacks a car and heads to the north woods...only to torment a group of vacationing teenagers. And those teens...oh those teens. This group of unruly misfits ranges from annoying, to Harland Williams annoying, to Jerry Lewis annoying. In fact, one character is decked out in whiteface and carries a Les Paul electric guitar with an amplifier strapped to his back. This film almost forces us to push the mute buttin as this little cretin pumps out some of the worst guitar pieces this side of One More Soldier (see the reviews for Night of Horror).

The deaths result by way of Jake...sorry, I mean, J. Kelly's hands, giving us an idea of his brut stength. But c'mon, a horror film needs a little gore. The opening scene in which Kelly induces an off-screen, sound effects only car accident displays to us the budget limitations on Home. Let me put it this way, to my knowledge, the director went over budget after purchasing packages of M+M's for the crew...and according to the credits, there are only about two crew members!

The end effect is pretty harmless, I guess. But please; enough is enough. I hope ANOTHER distributer doesn't re-title this garbage, Sweet Slasher in the Home. A third viewing may result in suicide.

The low point: Haven't I complained enough? Sitting through to the end.
The other low point: Sitting through it twice. (There is no high point - trust me when I say that)

I'd like to comment more on Home, but my self defence mechanism just kicked in, removing it from memory. It's run time is...

Wait, I just forgot which film I'm writing about.

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