Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Home Sweet Home (1980)









Home Sweet Home is a delightfully absurd slasher film. A large, muscular killer escapes from the loony bin, gets jacked up on PCP, and goes on a stalk and slash escapade. There is no back-story or motive.
The killer is a Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk looking guy who cackles with hysterical laughter every time he attacks somebody. Credited simply as “Killer” in the end credits, he was played by Jake Steinfeld, a personal trainer for Hollywood celebrities.
The victims are some loosely associated family members having a Thanksgiving celebration in a rural area of Southern California. I say loosely associated because the whole plot seemed sort of thrown together, and most of the dialog seemed add-libbed. One guy runs around the entire time with his face painted up like KISS, and playing a Les Paul with an amplifier strapped to his back. His name is Mistake, and he seems created to annoy. I am not making this up. There is a bubbly Mexican stereotype female character who doesn’t speak any English and jams along with Mistake with her Spanish guitar. The rest of the people are fodder for the PCP maniac.
What it lacks in quality, Home Sweet Home made me feel right at home with its incessant craziness and hyper activity. Just when things started slowing down, Mistake would pop in and start jamming, PCP guy would run up out of nowhere and laugh, stab someone, laugh some more, and then disappear back off into the woods outside the house.
The producer, Don Edmonds, also made the rock n’ roll horror Terror On Tour (1980).
The title is a tame one for this manic episode of a film, and the cover art doesn’t do much to set it apart from the pack of early 1980s independent slasher films. I passed this film by for years before I finally decided to watch it last night after reading it’s write up on Bleeding Skull.com.
The film was never released on DVD, but is available for download from a few torrent sites. Sadly, it has slipped deep into obscurity. Video Review’s store copy was a VHS tape probably as old as I am. It was issued by Media Home Entertainment, whose tapes are built to last. It was also released under the title Blood Party, and Slasher In The House.

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