Dream Home

This film has two storylines: one of them follows an apparently fragile Asian girl mercilessly and brutally mowing one person after another, the second follows the same woman in her usual social mode and the events explain her motivations to do what she does in the first storyline. In the end, everything connects logically, but I have a little problem because my Western European brain doesn’t see those motivations as fully sufficient. The horror aspect, however, works perfectly, the whole thing is gloomy and dreary, the victims have almost no chance of surviving their encounter with that killing machine. It’s very likely that we won’t see better murders this year. 75 % (05.11.2010)

Gnadenloser Ausbeutungshorror über ein junges Mädchen, das ihrem Traum über Leichen geht. Und davon wird es viele geben! Schon von Anfang an zeigt euch die Mörderin ihre Skrupellosigkeit und wozu sie fähig ist. Dieses Mädchen lässt sich von nichts und niemandem abschrecken! Sie richtet ihre Opfer wirklich mit beispielloser Hingabe und Grausamkeit hin, bemalt sogar eine Wohnung in dunkelrot, bis die Anzahl der Toten bei 13 stehen bleibt. Die Mieter eines Wohnkomplexes bringt sie raffiniert mit allem Möglichen um (nicht nur Messer und Pistolen, sondern auch ein Staubsauger kommen zum Einsatz), und erst durch eine zweite Handlungsebene, die sich hauptsächlich in ihrer Vergangenheit abspielt, werdet ihr ihre Gründe und Motive für diese Taten verstehen. Wenn ich Dream Home mit etwas vergleichen müsste, dann ist es der französische Film Inside. Ja, so ein Massaker ist es! (30.11.2010)

The workers take back their space. And they take the die-hard capitalist view that everyone is responsible for their own happiness to an appropriate extreme. A bold thesis about a heroine looking all her life at the door slowly closing on her dream, deciding at the last moment to stick her foot in it. And we don't have much reason not to root for her seeing as how she's done the legal maximum of what she could so far to get her way, but even that wasn't enough. Still, it's not a one-sided hypocritical poor girl's war against the decadent and bored rich, because in her quest for happiness, she doesn't stop at brutally butchering mere arbitrators in quite possibly in the same social position as she is (janitors, prostitutes, Filipino maids, policemen). Either way, it's a bravura indictment of the system with incredibly brachial violence, where no one asked if this wasn't a bit much. With starring turns by a plastic puller, a carpet cutter, a screwdriver, a plastic bag with a vacuum cleaner, a hammer, a kitchen knife, a broken board, a revolver, and the will to get your way. Leave the pity and sense of justice at home. As well as the need for constant reminders that all of the protagonist's action is not really forensically bulletproof. (19.06.2018)

The film Dream Home introduces us to the Hong Kong school of special effects, which makes itself known in a really great way. Here, the killing hurts, and this is where you see it all and you think, “Jesus, how could they have shot it so well, the camera simply won't budge?" And it works. There's also a certain social-critical overlap that's not as strong, but it has its place here too. Most of all, though, you'll remember the massacre. (09.04.2018)