[Home Sick]
Plot: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.

Cast:Lindley Evans, Bill Moseley, Tiffany Shepis, Forrest Pitts, Will Akers, Matt Lero, Brandon Carroll, Tom Towles, Jeff Dylan Graham, L.C. Holt.

My Thoughts:Despite the low budget, pretty cool.

Review:I'm not a big fan of redneck horror. I think it's been done before so many times. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and it's sequels, the remake, "Deliverance", "House Of 1000 Corpses", "Wrong Turn". All good films, but when some indie director comes along and gets the idea to do another killer-redneck horror-slasher film, I hang my head in horrid anticipation of what's next to come.

Adam Wingard however has put quite a new spin on this subgenre of film, and he did it in "Home Sick". Boasting a cast which includes genre familiars Tiffany Shepis and Bill Moseley, "Home Sick" follows a woman who returns from California back home to her small town in Alabama to visit. Her friends don't seem to react too well to her return home, feeling that she somehow is looking down at them now that she's been outside of her town for quite sometime.

That's when Mr. Suitcase (Bill Moseley) shows up. Resembling the persona and cheer of a traveling salesman, he simply enters the kids house, and pops open his suitcase full of razor blades. He then grabs Candice (Shepis), and starts asking the kids who do they hate the most? He goes down the line, one by one, asking them all this question...and for each answer he gets, he slashes himself across the hand with a razor blade. The final kid proclaims he hates everyone in the room with him, which later one turns out to be a big mistake.

Because the proclamations turn out to be tasks for a demon, which awakens and goes around town systematically killing everyone who each kid proclaimed they hated. And now, thanks to the final teens proclamation...he is done with the others, and has his sights set on them. Wingard's film is definitely southern-redneck horror...but it's alot smarter than the usual stuff to come out of this subgenre. Which is a big plus. The most interesting thing of all about "Home Sick" is how the film does a total 180 from where you expect it to go.

Once Mr. Suitcase shows up, you kind of think that it's gonna be one of those films where a nut shows up, holds everyone hostage, and begins to systematically torture, maime, and eventually kill them. Then one girl escapes, and manages to defeat the maniac. But Wingard's film takes a clever turn towards the supernatural instead, and that was the major avoidance of a big headache for me. I'd hate to have to sit through another torturefest.

Anyhow, the creature in the pic carries out it's charges, which is to kill everyone mentioned in Mr. Suitcases dialogue with the teens. The creature isn't shown that much in the film though. We are left to assume early on it's a human being, possibly Mr. Suitcase...but as the movie moves along, it becomes more and more evident that the perp ain't human. Despite it's niche for using human methods of disposing of people, such as axes and that sort of thing.

Blood and gore is ever present in "Home Sick", which surprisingly enough has some pretty good performances for a straight-to-dvd cheapie. But that's mostly because Moseley makes the most of his two or three scenes, and Tiffany Shepis manages to carry some of the films comedy along with Tom Towles (House Of 1000 Corpses), who shows up later in the film as what is becoming an obligatory horror character...the gun nut who is the only source of help for the hapless teenagers who have no clue of how to save their own lives.

It seems no one wants anything to do with these characters outside of when someone is trying to kill them. Then they're the first person tasked with helping out the not-so-smart teenagers. "Home Sick"s finale quickly breaks down into a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"-styled frenzy with alot of blood, gore, and gunplay. Which I guess was Wingard's intention, although it didn't seem that way to me. The films ending, along with a few very graphic demises are it's strongest points however. And while like I said, the movie looks extremely low budget, it still manages to be mostly fun and mostly entertaining in it's own way.

Positives:Interesting story with Mr. Suitcase and the demon, decent performances, great blood, gore, and a few good kills.

Negatives:Looks very low budget, not a big Negative but in some scenes it is. Near the end, a few of the late introduced characters can get annoying.

Overall:Two and a half stars out of four.





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