HOME SWEET HOME (1981)

HOME SWEET HOME (1981)

Tagline: Be it ever so humble, there's no place to HIDE

(Horror, Slasher, The Day The Music Died) [R]

Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating, but it would have been a [R] due to brief nudity that apparently wasn’t in the TV version. 

In this one, a station wagon stealing mental patient on PCP that killed his parents is on the loose and out to ruin the Bradley family's Thanksgiving. So yeah, you can add this to the long list of Holidays getting ruined by maniacs with various weaponry. 

First off, I am sure there are better copies out there, but the one I watched was pretty tough to watch just regarding the quality. For that reason, I am not going to rip on the lighting for this one. I am just going to assume that was pretty mediocre like the rest of this damn thing.

The overall rating for this movie on most websites is pretty dismal and I can see a good reason for that. No one in this movie that is on screen for more than 5 minutes seems to be able to act. Except for maybe Jake Steinfeld who maybe took on the role of the generically named killer “Jay Jones”. As of 2022, his big claims to fame were being in COMING TO AMERICA and doing voice work for RATATOUILLE. His overall physique in this is pretty menacing. It’s one thing when you have a killer that has a weapon and has a few marbles missing but when they are gigantic and muscular it comes across on the screen as them just being all that much more intimidating. Having said that, aside from a few lines that don’t make any sense at the time they are said, this killer spends a ridiculous amount of time just giggling. At first, it almost made me laugh, but the film never really gets into a comical mood. It’s pretty much straightforward and humorless the entire time. 

Acting wise we do get a very young  Vinessa Shaw in this who has gone on to do a mixed bag of other things, like HOCUS POCUS and 3:10 TO YUMA, but as I stated earlier, she isn’t and wasn't a good enough actress at that time to save this thing. The rest of the cast is a lot of people like Peter De Paula who plays a character named “Mistake” that just cannot stop playing his guitar dressed as a dude from KISS. Mind you, this is a movie that is supposed to take place during Thanksgiving. De Paula was only in two acting roles, the other being a bit part in the Wonder Woman TV show as a mime. I think I speak for everyone watching this movie, you pretty much can’t wait for this guy to get off-screen. We also get Lisa Antille who plays Maria and was only in 7 acting roles (3 of those were horror flicks though so she may technically qualify as a scream queen?). Just one more example, Leia Naron is in this and does okay with the screen time she gets as Gail, but this was her only film ever. 

A few things this movie does fairly well at is creating a creepy atmosphere and giving us a creepy killer than was mask-less. Typically with these slasher flicks, if the guy or gal doing the killing doesn’t have a mask on I am typically not quite as intimidated by them. Jay Jones in this is pretty effective, so props on that. The other thing this movie did fairly well kept the killings to a minimal gore level. I am not a big gore guy, I like cheesy stuff, so if you are going dark, at least don’t make me watch a ton of gore. 

So in spite of a few of my complaints and a horrible script, HOME SWEET HOME is actually probably somewhere just below the middle of the slasher pack of movies. If you are doing a Halloween horror-o-thon you could certainly do worse. Also given the ending they were clearly hoping for a part II. 

Overall this one gets a 3 out of 7. It’s not good, but it’s just okay. 

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