Written by Brandy Bunce
Look back at your childhood and how you imagined yourself as an adult, did you come even close to that expectation in reality? Sometimes in life we place our bar of expectation too high and thanks to the help of the economy, lack of the proper skills or our own bad choices in life those goals are impossible to meet.
Dream Home is all about one woman’s childhood goal of owning her dream home in a time when housing prices in Hong Kong are astronomical, the daily struggles she has to endure and the morbid measures she is willing to go to, to make her dream come true. If you like the typical blood, sex, occasional drug use with a humorous undertone at times in your slasher films, then this one is definitely for you.
Directed by Ho-Cheung Pang and starring Cheng Lai –Sheung, this film is the perfect mix of sympathetic drama and slasher style killings throughout. There are two things I will warn you about this film, the film is in Chinese so if you are not a fan of subtitles, you may want to take a pass on watching it. The second being at the beginning of the film we see “based on a true story” come up, the film is based off of the financial issues of owning a home in Hong Kong and the experience the director had in trying to obtain his own home but that’s where the truth ends. The plot and killings that take place throughout the film are completely fictitious; no need to lock your doors there is no home-loving murderess on the loose.
With that being said this film is worth seeing, it’s has a great use of cinematography and editing, the acting is well done and isn’t forced, plus the creativity in the kills throughout the film make it more than worth your time. Cheng Lai-Sheung does a great job playing a character that is likeable despite her need to kill, she really fits the phrase ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’. She tugs on the audience’s heart strings with her need to live out a childhood dream, something we can all identify with; yet she doesn’t disappoint with the slasher-tastic, blood splatter filled scenes a horror movie fan craves.
I was excited to see that this film was added to Netflix recently and promptly viewed it on the spot, thankfully without any disappointment .I definitely feel this film should have had an astronomical amount of recognition in comparison to what I had heard of it prior to viewing it myself. As I have always said Chinese and Japanese directors are some of the most brilliant in the genre of horror, they have a way of thinking out of the box, twisting plots in unexpected ways and making their films a must needed addition to your horror collection at home. Ho-Cheung Pang I tip my hat to you for making this statement true to the core, Dream Home is definitely being added to my collection.