Home Sick (Review)

Home Sick

Home Sick (2007)

Directed by Adam Wingard

I first heard about Adam Wingard and E.L. Katz when I first viewed Wingard's short Laura Panic. It starred this hot Scarlet Johansson lookalike Hannah Hughes and I was entrenched by the short short too short story.

So of course I IMDBed Wingard and saw he'd directed two flicks, this one and Pop Skull.

We here at the jaded viewer told you about this flick in July of last year. Well I finally got around to watching it.

It seems Home Sick went on a horror festival run and from what I've read from the horror-sphere people dug the flick tremendously. Standing at a solid 90 minutes, we've got a stallar cast of Chiller regulars. The horror queen herself, Tiffany Shepis, Bill fuckin Moseley and Tom Towles.

So what's the hyperpalooza over Home Sick. Home Sick is a macabre dream come to life, acting by actors who should not be acting and buckets and buckets of gore.

It's the splatter that stands out far above the rest of the film (other than Tiffany Shepis's perky, voloptuous breasts).

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A maniac with a suitcase full of razorblades unleashes a super human killer upon a group of kids in a small Alabama town. They must take up arms with a insane Chili enthusiast if they want to survive.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Home Sick seemed like a flick made by a group of friends/horror regulars in Jersey over the weekend while they were attending a Chiller or Fango Weekend of Horrors convention. Seemed like the director was like "Who wants to make a movie?" It just has that feel of almost video maybe this could be film sorta feel. It's extremely low budget, but the effort to please the horror-core is ever present.

A cast of horror fan minions all attend a party. Who are these fresh fodder soon to be victims?

1.) Crazy gun happy redneck (this dude is the worst actor I've ever seen)
2.) Some Munster looking kid
3.) Tiffany "looking damn gothy yummy" Shepis
4.) Hipster looking dude
5.) Final Girl girl

A man carrying a suitcase of razorblades named Mr. Suitcase (Bill Moseley) crashes the party and starts demanding to know who everybody hates. As they tell him he cuts his arms with razorblades. Who the fuck knows why but to push the non existent plot along, this initiates everybody they name to be killed.

After getting that pesky plot outta the way, all the successive scenes are set up death scenes of various people. The hated get arms cut off, intestines spillage, hacked in the head, etc.

It's the top notch, anti CGI gore that is full of hip hip hooray. The effects are brilliant and well executed by our masked demon killer. The makeup is also to be applauded. Stellar effects in both gore and splatter.

The craziest scene has gotta to be a topless Tiffany Shepis rolling around in blood, laughing evilishly. If I could put this scene in the WTF Moment Hall of Fame, I would induct it immediately.

That's the good yip for Home Sick.

What's the arghhhh?

Well aside from Shepis and Moseley and the gore, everything else falls apart. Some of the actors seem to be improvising their lines...badly. This is not Tara Reid acting bad. Or Uwe Boll acting bad. This was cardboard cut out acting bad. I really wanted Keyboard cat to play these bad actors off.

Adding to the horribleness is Tom Towles as Uncle Johnny, a crazed Confederate gun toting old redneck geezer who the remaining survivors go to for help. A scene where the group eats chili seemed to be 10 min of filler.

The flick also suffers from being so dreamlike, it's definitely entering Herschell Gordon Lewis territory. It's almost like a Gregg Araki-ish horror flick combining a bizarro world with a slasher flick.

Home Sick is slightly above any other indie horror flick as the gore and splatter are in a stratosphere of awesomness. Add in Tiffany Shepis and a creepy Bill Moseley it jump ups a few notches on the horror belt. But it's still amateurish for Wingard's first feature which brings this flick down to Earth.

Experimentism in my horror I can take to a point. But overall, it's worth a look for the inner gorehound in you.

Gore-ipedia

Knife to the mouth
Sliced feet trauma
Ax to the head trauma
Heavy intestine trauma
Fingernail trauma
Split body trauma
Beheadings (x2)
Shotgun blast to the stomach trauma
Gunshot to the head trauma
Punch to the face trauma
Shotgun blast to the head trauma

Nude-ipedia

Tiffany Shepis A+ Boobs

WTF moment

More Tiffany Shepis giggling, vomiting and rolling around in blood....naked.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Wingard would follow up with Pop Skull which according to some is hit or miss. I wouldn't mind if Laura Panic turned up as his next feature. For Home Sick, if you get into the mindset that your watching this at a Chiller convention with other horror fanatics, you'll dig it. You'll need a few beers in you to get some laughs but it's been a while since I rewound some death scenes for multiple viewings.

Synapse films is distributing the DVD with a bunch of extras and some shorts.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.











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