La nuit du saigneur

Surely telling you the annoying guy got killed isn't a spoiler! I mean, the film itself sets up all these potential sex scenes, and then this guy dressed like a KISS member, playing a guitar, shows up and ruins everything. I was more worried that he wouldn't survive until the killer turned up!

The killer is a buffed up muscle man who shoots PCP under his tongue and laughs all the time. In the first few minutes he kills a drunkard and runs over an old woman. If you like watching serious slasher flicks then you might as well give up on this one because the tongue is rigid within the cheek. With the guitar playing moron (named Mistake), the fat business partner and the wailing Latin lady, this film is played for fun and not much else.

Truly, it ain't a classic by all means, but when one of the potential 'heros' syphoned gasoline from another car, then gets crushed when the killer jumps on him, you're not talking about high class cinema, but I couldn't help but like this (really) stupid film. At least you can watch it in the knowledge that the really annoying characters (namely Mistake) are going to be killed. I was surprised the killer just didn't shove that guitar right up his arse, because that's what I wanted to do!

An average slasher film, but it's aware of the cheese level, and wallows in it, and it's worth a watch at least.

1981 was a memorably dire year. We had assassination attempts on The President and The Pope. A cement walkway in Kansas City fell, crushing over one hundred people. The first cases of AIDS were reported, California was beset by ravenous fruit-flies, and hundreds of Beirut civilians were wiped-out during Israeli bombings. In select theaters, audiences were subjected to a slasher-film atrocity concerning a musclebound PCP freak who escapes from a nuthouse and proceeds to successively kill off members of a family at their Thanksgiving dinner. That film was HOME SWEET HOME.

Groan in pain while you watch famed fitness instructor Jake Steinfeld flex his acting muscles as the cackling killer...somehow he manages to deliriously overplay a character who has virtually no dialog whatsoever. The circumstantial humor in Steinfeld's towering inferno of ham-handed histrionics is, however, the sole glimmer of virtue in this unbearable bagatelle, a bland early entry in the slasher cycle which is surprisingly spare on gore and nudity.

Potentially gratifying for ultra-masochistic bad movie fans, I suppose...in this capacity, I might suggest watching it back-to-back with THE FREEWAY MANIAC.

3.5/10

Home Sweet Home features one of the craziest killers ever to grace a trashy 80s slasher: a musclebound escaped mental patient who injects PCP under his tongue. Within minutes, this gibbering, wild-eyed, spittle-flecked loon (overacted with relish by body-builder Jake Steinfeld) has throttled a drunk, stolen his car, and callously ploughed down an old lady as she crosses the road (leaving a bright red splash of blood all over the windshield).

Having introduced us to her drug-fuelled juggernaut of a maniac, director Nettie Peña then acquaints us with her equally memorable collection of eccentric victims-to-be who have gathered at a remote woodland ranch to celebrate Thanksgiving: lovers Scott and Jennifer (who can't keep their hands off each other), ex-record company executive Bradley (exploitation producer/actor Don Edmonds) and his big-breasted girlfriend Gail (Leia Naron), hot singing senorita Maria (Lisa Rodríguez) and her boyfriend Wayne (Charles Hoyes), Bradley's young daughter Angel (Vinessa Shaw) and his irritating teen mime-artist/magician/rock guitarist son Mistake (Peter De Paula).

With its colourful characters established, the stage is set for what could easily have been one of the most awesomely absurd slashers of all time, but what follows completely fails to capitalise on its potential for seriously demented horror (surprising considering the involvement of Don Edmonds, director of infamous Nazisploitation flick Ilsa–She Wolf of the SS, a man who knew a thing or two about trash cinema).

Rather than a smörgåsbord of exploitative excess, Home Sweet Home turns out to be a surprisingly reserved affair, with director Peña missing virtually every opportunity to deliver outrageous nudity or gore: most of the characters are dispatched without the need for expensive or time-consuming special effects (ie., they're bloodless and boring); Mistake, who is begging to be gutted like a pig from the word go, suffers a frustratingly bloodless death, electrocuted by a high voltage cable (he could have at least burst into flame or exploded as the current surged through his body); and the film's hottest babe, Maria, gets down to her bra but is killed before baring her jubblies (whereas any self-respecting movie psycho would have ripped off her underwear before delivering the death blow).

Home Sweet Home is just about worth seeing for Steinfeld's unbelievably OTT performance and De Paula's mind-bogglingly bizarre face-painted fret-board widdler, but given the promise of the off-the-wall opening scenes, it can only be viewed as a bit of a disappointment overall.

An escaped mental patient high on PCP stalks and murders a family during the Thanksgiving holiday. The killer's methods are more brutal then usual and he is undisciminating when it comes to choosing his victims, but that still doesn't separate this from the hundreds of other horror movies that hit the market in the 80's. The killer (Body By Jack) has a really annoying laugh too, which makes the film funny instead of scary. I guess that is what sinks this one.

Home Sweet Home has its moments, but ultimately suffers from an awful story. It has some nice death scenes, but little else. Only watch if your in the mood not for a good movie but some fun scenes of death and blood. It's pretty awesome, but fails in the end. Watch only if in the mood. Most of the soundtrack s lifted from Mad Max. The plot is about a killer who escapes from the asylum and kills a bunch of people. Not much else. Very good if in the mood. A lot of good effects. Very bad acting. The killer is very buff. He is very creepy. Has a maniacal laugh. Shoots PCP in his tongue. Very bad movie, but good deaths. Fun for horror fans. I watched it on thanksgiving, where it takes place, and had a blast. No DVD available, but VHS is good.