‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place to HIDE’
Home Sweet Home is an American 1981 slasher horror film directed and edited by Nettie Peña (who also worked on Dracula Sucks) from a screenplay by Thomas Bush. It was produced by Don Edmonds (Terror on Tour; Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS).
The movie stars Jake Steinfeld, Vinessa Shaw, Peter De Paula, Don Edmonds, Charles Hoyes, David Mielke, Leia Naron, Lisa Rodríguez, Colette Trygg and Sally Young.
Co-executive producer Alex Rebar was the actor who played The Incredible Melting Man and writer of To All a Goodnight (1980).
The Bradley family and their friends gather at an isolated country home to celebrate Thanksgiving. However, unknown to the Bradleys, they have an uninvited guest.
A giggling, PCP-addled, homicidal maniac has escaped from imprisonment to satisfy his pent-up lust for murder. And he has singled out their home for his psychopathic killing spree. One by one, the revellers will be methodically stalked and served up in the butcher’s holiday blood feast…
Reviews:
“This isn’t a film worth seeking out unless you are doing a slasher craze deep dive. Even with its quirks and occasional absurd kills, there’s not much to recommend here. Still, given its footnote in history as one of cinema’s few Thanksgiving slashers and some of its other odd pieces of trivia, it’s one worth our remembrance.” Bloody Disgusting
“It’s entertaining to watch the stereotypical bad acting, the flimsy plot and the absurd set-up and characterization going on. After everything is in place, though, the movie is just boring as hell for the final hour. The kills certainly are not very inventive. You don’t care one way or the other about a single character.” Bloody Popcorn
“The guests at the Thanksgiving get-together manage to accomplish only one thing; they manage to make you hope for their demises within seconds of meeting them, and this goes triple for the mime/magician with the portable electric guitar. The dialogue is horrendous and the acting is on par with the dialogue.” Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings
“Home Sweet Home is a fun and silly flick that is 100% camp. The acting is all over the place, the tone remains light and there isn’t a genuine scare throughout. Still, it’s hilariously awesome. For the few who have seen Las Vegas Bloodbath (1989) it’s a bit like that though with a higher-budget (believe it or not) and less gore.” Scared Stiff Reviews
“As expected, Home Sweet Home delivers a cornucopia of slasher clichés: sex, nudity, goofy characters, terrible acting (here compounded by bad dub jobs), poor logic, cars that don’t work, chauvinism, and plenty of blood. As such, it’s obviously not really good in any sense of the word, but it’s a fun little slasher in its own right.’ Oh, The Horror!
“A film with a complete lack of political correctness mixed with an abundance of mean-spirited glee is always welcome in my home. I mean, an old lady gets splattered across a windshield during the opening credits. You know that’s worth a look.” Horror Movie a Day
” …a poor script and even weaker directing and a hysterical performance from Steinfeld and with Mistake – perhaps the most annoying character in cinematic history – does sort of help Home Sweet Home become a so bad it’s almost good.” Last Road Reviews
” …the film has heart. Sure, it’s a kind of mindless and confused heart, but the acting is decent and there’s a real feeling that the filmmakers were shooting for something. Sometimes it just takes that little extra edge to make a movie work.” Retro Slashers
“Home Sweet Home is a truly terrible movie. It’s bad to the very core; but if you are in just the right mood and you’re an aficionado of cheese then you might get a few kicks out of this fetid stinker” Hysteria Lives
“This worthless holiday slasher builds zero suspense, due in part to one of the splatter genre’s most unsympathetic casts (need proof? Exhibit A: off-key crooner Rodríguez, and an electric guitar-playing mime vie for who can be the most irritating). Muscle stud wannabe Steinfeld clearly tries his best…and comes up with a quirky, cackling, grunting imitation of a psycho that’s neither scary nor interesting…” The Terror Trap
“The family of largely unsympathetic, barely named characters provide the meat content for the first hour, until the floor caves in for supposed ‘tension building’ […] Crappy acting abounds as people fail to react convincingly to anything and don’t seem to care about the rash of disappearances.” Vegan Voorhees
” …Home Sweet Home was pretty boring and was full of stuff that we’ve seen countless times, but that isn’t to say that there aren’t some hilarious things in it. The killer himself, Jake Steinfeld, just straight up looks nuts. Not necessarily insane, but he’s got this weird afro mullet thing going on and wears a shirt made for a child.” The Wolfman Cometh
For YouTube reviews, the trailer and more movie info click the page 2 link below
MOVIES & MANIA provides previews, our own film reviews and ratings, plus links to other online reviews from a wide variety of trusted sources in one handy web location. This is a genuinely independent website and we rely solely on the minor income generated by internet ads to pay for web costs and cover yet more movies. Please support us by not blocking ads. Thank you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn a very tiny amount from any qualifying purchases.