Writer(s): Ho-cheung, Kwok Cheung Tsang, and Chi-Man Wan
Starring: Josie Ho, Juno Mak, Norman Chu, and Eason Chan
I am not at all a fan of the typical American “slasher” film. There’s just something about the vast majority that leaves me unsatisfied. My problem is that most of them feel like those pornos that try to have a plot…is anyone really following along with that? You know everyone is fast forwarding through the talking just to get to the “action” scenes. Same with slashers. Why waste 75 minutes of screentime watching usually amateur actors struggle their way through poorly written lines (and clumsy sex scenes), just to get to 10 minutes of generally unimpressive deaths? While I understand the concept (people like sex and violence and they generally do big business), I’ve never understood why so many films in this subgenre manage to be so bland and lifeless (pun not intended).
Other countries seem to understand the potential,
though. Enter Hong
Kong’s Dream Home, directed by Pang Ho-cheung, a film that
delivers everything the standard slasher movie requires, while simultaneously
turning the subgenre on its ear. In this
case, the killer is not some indestructible masked maniac who kills teenagers
in tired ways—it’s Cheng Lai-Shung, a petite woman who dreams of owning a flat
with the perfect view of the sea…and will stop at nothing to get it.
The deaths are prolonged, and incredibly violent; they have
got to be some of the most realistic murder sequences I’ve seen. Characters don’t just get stabbed once and
then fall to the ground motionless, or get strangled for five seconds before
succumbing; in real life, the body is very resilient, and will attempt to do
whatever it takes to survive, a notion that’s sometimes chillingly realized
here. Characters survive for minutes
after being disemboweled, a pregnant woman is suffocated for what feels like an
eternity in the most heinous way imaginable, and there is plenty more where
that came from. I’ve always wanted to
make a standard slasher where the only difference is the deaths are agonizingly
drawn-out lifelike; my point being to cross a standard form of entertainment
where we are basically encouraged to cheer on death, only taking it so far that
there’s no “entertainment” left. While
this is not the point of Dream Home, it’s certainly the closest a movie has ever
come to reaching that plateau.
But there’s also substance to go along with its graphic
style: Dream Home jumps around
chronologically, almost Tarantino-style, to gradually reveal her reasons for
the murders, as they are playing out. We’ll
watch Cheng kill a person or two, then flash back to reveal another tidbit of
what eventually drove her to such an uncontrollable rage. I’ll admit that, in the beginning, it really
kind of makes you feel for her; by the end, you’ll gradually start
understanding just how one-dimensional her murder spree really is. I also appreciated the decision to make her
every bit as vulnerable as her victims, who are usually bigger and stronger;
when her element of surprise doesn’t work (or wears off), she’s susceptible to
taking damage herself. I thought this
was a welcome change from the norm.
While the film is also marketed as a black comedy, and I
guess there’s just enough of it to keep it from being a completely ugly film
(thematically; visually, it’s very well-shot), just an advanced warning that
there is nary a single likable character.
While this certainly doesn’t justify the murders (nor do I believe that
is its intention), it manages to make an already dark film feel even more
pessimistic and cruel. We may hate Cheng,
but we don’t really have anyone else to latch on to, either. That being said, it never even comes close to
reaching the depths of depravity of a film like, say, Salo does, but there
are times when it seems entirely focused, hellbent even, on crossing lines to
make the viewer feel uncomfortable.
But in the end, isn’t that what these types of movies should
be all about? In some ways, “horror”
feels to movies what “punk” is to music; a genre that’s all about breaking
rules and making people uncomfortable. Dream House certainly does both of those things, with such a reckless
abandon that it becomes nothing less than admirable.
RECAP: It’s endlessly dark (save for some minor humorous
bits), and ridiculously violent, but I loved Dream Home for taking the basic
slasher movie, and singlehandedly rejuvenating it. There are no indestructible madmen offing
campers with absolute ease; instead we have a vulnerable, petite woman,
obsessed with purchasing a specific apartment, killing neighboring tenants in
unflinchingly graphic fashion. Its jumpy
presentation (frequently switching from past to present) will no doubt confuse
and/or annoy some, but I thought it was a great addition. If you love slasher movies, you owe it to
yourself to give this one a shot, but be forewarned; much of the violence blurs
the line between “mindless entertainment”, and “shocking realism”.
SCORE: 8.5/10
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