Home Sweet Home (1981)

AKA: "Slasher in the House" 

Directed by: Nettie Peña

Starring: Jake Steinfeld, Peter de Paula, Don Edmonds, Charles Hoyes, David Mielke, Leia Naron, Lisa Rodriguez, Collette Trygg, Sallee Young and Introducing Vinessa Shaw

Genre: Horror / Slasher / B-Movie

Rated: Not Rated

It's Thanksgiving and the Bradleys are planning a large get together with friends. The turkey is in the oven, the veggies on the stove, and the guests are arriving. Little do they know that an uninvited guest will be crashing the party - an escaped mental patient on PCP who plans to kill them one by one.

This flick is definitely one of the weaker entries in the slasher genre - especially from 1981, the peak of the "Golden Age" of slasher films. There is little if anything positive about this movie.

The acting is absolutely atrocious. Jake Steinfeld should stick to selling exercise equipment and stay out of the acting field. He is laughable as the killer, breathing heavy, grunting in an almost sexual manner and laughing maniacally. His performance was extremely over the top and did not match the serious tone of the movie. The rest of the cast was fairly wooden, with the exception of Peter de Paula as Mistake, who, while a bit annoying, was the only cast member who seemed to have an ounce of personality.

The characters were all fairly unlikable as they were so dull. I couldn't bring myself to really care about any of the characters except the little girl as she was innocent. The adults were all stiff and could only seem to think about getting in each other's pants, despite there being children in the house. Many viewers rant about Mistake being incredibly annoying, running around with his mime make up and electric guitar with portable amp - but he seemed to be the most developed character in the entire movie. Sure, he was irritating with his constant guitar playing and sure he liked to barge in on people about to have sex, but he was also great with Angel, his little sister, doing magic to make her smile and looking after her when the adults were ignoring her. It's also clear his father is a jerk who doesn't care about his son at all. I may be reading too much into a B-movie character, but I'd say Mistake's antics were an attempt to get attention - for a lot of kids even negative attention is better than no attention at all.

I began to take a liking to Jennifer and Scott toward the end of the movie, but they became pretty stupid once they realized the danger that lurked outside the home. They both swore to protect Angel, but both forget her in the house when they run outside, then Jennifer forgets her again while running from the killer ten minutes later. Without giving anything away, the ending proves Angel is the most intelligent character in the film.

The kills and gore leave something to be desired as well. This is a very low budget flick so many of the kills are lacking the blood and guts factor. The bloodiest kill is the old woman that the killer hits with his car at the beginning of the movie. The rest are bloodless where they shouldn't be, dull and unmemorable, with the exceptions of the death by electrocution and the character crushed under a car hood while attempting to steal a battery. There are plenty of low budget horror films that have done bloodless kills right and managed to maintain the horror and suspense factor, this flick is certainly not one of them.

The lighting is also very poor. Most of the scenes shot at night are very hard to see as they are almost completely dark. A few of the kills were shot like this, presumably to save on special effects. There are many moments in the final third of the movie where you have to listen to the dialogue to discern what is happening because you cannot see what is happening on the screen. 

Overall, this is a relatively tame, boring slasher flick with a laughable killer, watered down kills, unlikable characters and poor lighting. Unless you are a dedicated slasher fan, I recommend you skip this one.

2.5/10