Home Sweet Home: Rebirth

I was not familiar with this 2025 movie titled "Home Sweet Home: Rebirth" prior to sitting down to watch it. And not knowing anything about the movie, I harbored zero expectations. But I will say that I found the movie's cover/poster interesting enough to actually draw my attention.

Initially I had thought that this movie was a sequel or something, given the 'rebirth' part of the title, but that was apparently not the case. Turns out that it was apparently based on a game.

The storyline in the movie was simplistic, almost to the point of being non-existing. Sure, it made for a fair enough viewing experience, but just don't expect to be using your brain during the 93 minutes that the movie ran for.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, a thing that I actually enjoy whenever I sit down to watch a movie. And the acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact that the actors and actresses had surprisingly little material to work with.

Visually then the movie was good. I definitely liked the special effects in the movie, though while looking good they hardly did much of anything to add to the lacking storyline.

"Home Sweet Home: Rebirth" is the type of movie that you watch once, and forget about within the coming 24 hours. Yeah, there just wasn't sufficient contents to the script or storyline to make this a memorable movie. And it most definitely is not a movie that you will sit down and watch a second time.

Watchable, sure, but a very forgettable movie at best.

My rating of directors Steffen Hacker and Alexander Kiesl's 2025 movie lands on a generous five out of ten stars.

I watch a lot of movies but don't choose to write many reviews and prefer to leave that to more opinionated people. But this "movie" just begged in every way to be called out. After 90 grueling minutes I came to the conclusion that this movie was written and directed by people who had never actually met other human beings. Not a single line of dialog, interaction, decision or behavior seemed like anything normal people do. Every moment of character interaction felt so fake and lacked any connection to reality making the viewer's experience more like extended torture. There was not 1 likeable character and even the child was nerve gratingly annoying. There was no real plot and most staged scenes felt like they were done on no budget and used CGI to augment the missing elements but failed at every attempt. The fight/combat scenes were laughable jokes with nobody apparently able to fake actual impact. But I did get a big laugh at how the main "hero" (reminding me of Hudson of Hudson & Rex) completely abandons his family and doesn't even seem to care to think of them while the world is supposedly falling apart and he's doing his action hero schtick... badly. This movie feels like it was an overreach by everyone involved and they tried to fill in all the gaps in post with really bad fx work. But for me it didn't work in any way and was more anger inducing than entertaining.

After reading some of the reviews, I had to see for myself how bad this movie is ... but you know, I kind of liked it. My expectations were super low from the reviews, so that may have helped, but I think the movie is pretty good. It's a low budget sci-fi movie with decent acting and some impressive CGI monsters ... what's to complain about? Just watch the movie with the goal of being entertained watching characters being chased by monsters around Bangkok for 90 minutes, and you won't be disappointed. The actors were good and definitely committed to their roles ... just the dialogue didn't do them any favors. That's a problem with movies from games, if you never played the game, can just get lost figuring out what they're talking about. Cut out the game reference talk and replace it with more demon girl or that giant monster scenes, and I would have liked this movie even more.

Home Sweet Home: Rebirth is a textbook example of style over substance. Even with the game-accurate monsters and demons faithfully recreated, they are used merely as visual callbacks to the source material. They kill a few people with brutal violence, but ultimately, their sole purpose seems to be to shout, "Hey, we're from a video game!" rather than serving any real narrative or suspenseful purpose.

Unfortunately, that's where the strengths end.

There's virtually no story to latch onto. We're thrown directly into the chaos without any meaningful setup, background, or buildup. Monsters and possessed people are hurled at the audience purely to generate cheap thrills, but with no emotional investment or structure, it all feels meaningless. It plays more like a cutscene montage than a cohesive film. Much like House of the Dead adaptations, it leans heavily on visual references to the game but forgets to tell an actual story.

The acting is serviceable for a lower-budget foreign production. The cast clearly tries, and while they're not A-list or international stars, they deliver decent performances given what little the script provides. Unfortunately, no amount of effort from the cast can save the hollow structure they're stuck inside.

While the cinematography and special effects are genuinely impressive, they're wasted without a strong story to support them. A more faithful, atmospheric adaptation of the original video game's Thai folklore and chilling atmosphere would have made for a much better film. Instead, Home Sweet Home: Rebirth feels like an empty, beautifully wrapped package with nothing meaningful inside.

Story was weak, characters were forgettable and acting was terrible. I am so glad I won't have any memory of this movie to remind me of how bad it was. The CGI wasn't too bad but the demons looked robotic and not scary at all. This movie felt rushed and was probably produced to cash in some quick bucks. There were quite a few moments where my wandered off as it doesn't hold your attention long enough to keep you interested. It is watchable to some degree but I say this with caution. The fact that I looked forward to this movie so much just for it to let me down like this, is very disheartening.