Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives Review

Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives is a German horror-thriller that tells its story in one continuous take.

Maria (Nilam Farooq) is a heavily pregnant woman who moves into her husband’s family home. She plans to convert the home into a bed-and-breakfast. Upon Maria’s arrival, the house’s electrics start to falter, Maria experiences problems with her pregnancy, and she discovers a dark secret about her husband’s family.

I am a sucker for a long, continuous take in films and that’s what drew me towards Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives. It’s not the first film to do this: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope was one of the most famous one-shot films, Birdman and 1917 were award contenders, and from the German film industry there was the dramatic-thriller Victoria. Nor was Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives which was the first horror one-shot, since 2010 saw the releases of Cut and The Silent House.

In Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives’ case the use of the one-shot was done to give a standard horror film a unique selling point and make the most out of a small budget. This was a film that stuck to one location and had a small cast. The filmmakers followed the example of Birdman and 1917 instead of Victoria or The Silent House since the story wasn’t told in real-time. There was a sequence when Maria had a vision of an event in one of Germany’s African Colonies and showed a small time jump. The film wasn’t a true one-shot since there were some editing tricks, but it managed to create an illusion.

Whilst the one-shot can be a technical achievement, Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives didn’t do anything inventive like Birdman or 1917. The budgetary issues were clear when the film Maria saw the “African Village” and the use of CGI during a supernatural event. The one-shot technique was most interesting when more characters appeared and there was the threat of the unknown. The camera was focused on Maria, so the audience only knew her perspective.

Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives was most interesting with its ‘sins of the father’ theme. Maria discovered that one of her husband’s ancestors was responsible for an atrocity in German South-West Africa, leading the family to be cursed. The family and their home suffered from the spirits of Africa, a bit like His House, and Maria was made to suffer. This theme had a wider context since Germany has a sense of collective guilt because of their history and Maria was getting punished for the actions of others, actions that happened over 100 years ago.

Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives comes out when there has been a mini glut of pregnancy-themed horror films. Recently Unwelcome, Immaculate, and The First Omen, and the German film does go into similar territory as those films. Pregnancy was more than just a hindrance, it was a target for an evil entity. These comparisons were a little unfortunate since Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives was released before Immaculate and The First Omen in Germany, but after those films in the UK.

Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives did need a strong performance from the lead and the film got that with Farooq. Farooq was present in every scene and the young actress was able to exhibit the shock and fear Maria experienced.

Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives had the potential and some interesting ideas, but it wasn’t as creative or inventive as the filmmakers thought.