I knew that watching Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives could go one of two ways. Having seen comments about it being delivered in what looks like a single take, as well as revolving around a pregnant woman in peril, I worried that it wouldn't have much more going for it. I figured I would either love or hate it. I hated it.
Nilam Farooq plays Maria, the woman who has to hold our attention for the majority of the movie. She's heavily pregnant, which makes her even more vulnerable when things start getting a bit odd at the remote house she is occupying. That house belongs to her partner (Viktor, played by David Kross), and there's a dark history to it that may not be content to stay quiet.
Written and directed by Thomas Sieben, who has been helming features for over 15 years now, this is a disappointingly underwhelming experience. Although technically fine, and paced well enough throughout the 87-minute runtime, it doesn't do enough to make it memorable. The plotting feels a bit too predictable and tired, the "one shot" gimmick feels stale in the wake of the many films that have now taken that concept to such impressive heights (with both Victoria and MadS being the two I always think of as superior examples of the style), and the scares just aren't effective, due to the limitations of the format and the lack of atmosphere.
Farooq does a good enough job in the main role, and certainly tries to hold your attention while she has to wander around for a while and start getting freaked out, but she isn't able to dance around the clunkier moments that feel designed to either set up a later scare attempt or deliver some exposition. Kross has a lot less to do, but is also perfectly fine. There are very few others onscreen, as you might expect if you know the main premise, but Justus von Dohnányi and Anton Fatoni Schneider both do well in supporting roles, used in different ways to add some sense of potential menace to the situation.
I know that I haven't sounded overly critical here, not in a way that would make people think I hated this, but I have to remind you of how I ended the first paragraph. I hated it. It doesn't matter that the main cast members could at least act. It doesn't matter that it's made with a degree of competence. What matters is that I was never invested in the fate of the main character, never scared, and never impressed or entertained by anything onscreen.
3/10
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