Home Sweet Home Will Chill Your Bones

RATED- UNRATED
RUN TIME- 80 MINS
WRITER(S)- DAVID MORLET 
STARRING- MARTY ADAMS, SHAUN BENSEN AND MEGHAN HEFFERN
DIRECTOR- DAVID MORLET



Synopsis taken from IMDb
A young married couple comes home from a date night to discover that they are imprisoned in their house with a methodical killer inside.




While on my recent tirade of Netflix film, I couldn't decide what to watch, nothing on my queue looked appealing at the time. So, I scrolled through the new releases and found a film from this year called "Home Sweet Home". The cover had me guessing it to be a low quality film, but I figured what the hell, and clicked play.

Right away, I could see that I was wrong about this one. I found myself not wanting to take my eyes off of the screen the entire film. And that's a rare thing. This movie is like "Halloween" meets "The Collector" and had a baby that looked a lot like "The Strangers". It's definitely a creepy film, there's no denying it.

This is another one of those home invasion films that just gets into your bones and makes your skin crawl. There's a few good jumps in it and an even better amount of suspense. I was really on edge watching it. It was like a common slasher film, but it has it's own touch and it stands out. One of those reasons is that the antagonist had a different outfit. Not that we haven't seen it before, but we haven't seen this particular outfit used as a slashers costume before. And his mask is cold and creepy as hell, as well as original!

The movie starts with a good build up. Nothing really happens the whole first half hour, but it's intriguing and never gets boring. When I realized this, I knew I had to give this movie a respectful nod. This film is the opposite of what you're used to seeing. Instead of a movie that makes you afraid to leave your house, this one makes you afraid to go home.

I was invested in how you spend some time with "The Killer". I liked how even though you know nothing about him, he gave off enough to show that he's a normal human being, just completely twisted. Shaun Benson really brought it while playing the role. You can see hints and traces of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees' (head tilt), but it's not too much or overpowering. There's some well done homages in this film, and I always like it when a film can give another film a wink without stealing from it.

When the lead characters, Sara (Meghan Heffern) and Frank, (Adam Macdonald) realize there's someone in there house and it's too late to do anything. The movie carries on with Sara and Frank enjoying their night, not even knowing that the killer is in their home and has made it impossible for them to leave. You never know when he's going to come around the corner and catch you. The dialog seemed a little forced at points, but for the most part Sara and Frank came off as a real couple.

There is some gore in this film but, it's not a gory film at all. There's not an over abundance of blood, it's only used when necessary, and not overused, so I appreciated that. However, I know I've been singing this films praises, but it's not a perfect film. For one, the twist was very good, and a lot probably won't see it coming, but I did. Even though I liked the twist, having already predicted it hurt the impact it had. And there's some over acting as well. 

I won't go into a rant about it, because it wasn't awful, you can just easily tell these aren't pro actors, but they do a decent job. And the biggest flaw with the film is how the ending dragged out. I didn't care for the slow motion close-ups with opera music blaring. I don't think that part fit into the film well because, the rest of the film isn't like that. It's almost as if they wanted it to suddenly become an artsy horror film, and I didn't like it. The ending is unsettling though, and leaves you shaking your head in disbelief.

Although this film suffers from some cliches and slight predictability, it's actually a good slasher film. There's only a few small things wrong with it, and had they been done better, this film would be a damn near perfect slasher film. It's taken down a peg or two due to flaws, but it's a good and entertaining horror film that's actually scary. If you get the chance to watch any Netflix, add this one to the queue.