A television crew enter the sprawling Mamiya mansion to film the restoration of a fresco painted by the artist who lived there decades before.They discover not one but several frescoes including one that seems to depict the death of a young child in some kind of furnace.That night the temperamental presenter wanders out into the grounds of the house and digs up a coffin containing the charred remains of an infant.It soon becomes apparent that the child's mother,although dead herself has not left the house and is still angered by her loss."Sweet Home" is obviously inspired by Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist" and Robert Wise's "The Haunting".The special effects made by Dick Smith are spectacular and there is a good amount of grue including dismemberments and melting faces.The action is fast-paced,the script is well-written and the characters are engaging.8 out of 10.A hidden gem.

This film was made into a game by Capcom for the Japanese Nintendo system in 1989. This game was also called Suito Homu (Sweet Home in English). This led to another game in 1996 called RESIDENT EVIL! So, a whole genre of video games (called Survival Horror) traces back to this movie and its game! That's the main reason I give it a 10. Almost everything about the Resident Evil games was drawn from "Sweet Home!" There are monsters, it's set in a mansion, you are fighting for the lives of your team members while trying to solve a mystery, and you are collecting keys, weapons and other items are you investigate the place.For more info on this, check WIKIPEDIA.ORG under "Sweet Home" and my books,"The Sweet Home of Resident Evil" and "Resident Evil is Snapping at your Heels" on LULU.COM.

I saw this movie recently thinking that it would be scary, I was wrong. The movie isn't really that scary, it mostly has the usual gross horror special effects and killings. I was surprised at how "stupid" the movie was. A few examples, if you are working under a jacked-up car and listening to a sports game, do you get excited and start hopping while you're still underneath? If someone sees a small, strange, man-made rock formation with a skull-shaped rock on top, should they kick it over so they can use one of the rocks to break open a shed? If someone is killed with an axe, why would they turn into a pile of melted wax and how does a character recognize that pile of melted wax as one of their friends? This is just a few of the nonsensical things. The characters in the movie are not the usual horror cliché, pausing when they should be running, not picking up weapons etc., they are complete idiots. This movie would be great entertainment for a bad movie night or if you enjoy B movies (I do but, this was too much). Don't expect a work of art like other horror movies.

The question is do you want story or gore?If you want a story over special effects and blood splattering then this is the movie for you.The story involves a film crew going to the home of a long dead artist in order to film the murals painted on all of the walls of the house The paintings, which almost no one ever saw while the artist was alive have now become completely unseen by anyone living. The crew feels recording the legendary paintings will be the perfect addition to their film. The towns folk of course know that this is not a good idea and that the house is not a place that should be disturbed and they try to prevent the visit.Of course the crew goes and of course bad things begin to happen. What happens and why, is the rest of the movie.The joy of this film for me is that this is one of the rare horror films that works from start to finish with no real bumps in logic. What is happening or more importantly why things are happening is reasonable to the point of making some people I know want to scream. I can't really explain that without telling you the end and I will not do that under pain of death.SPOILER ABOUT A DIFFERENT FILM AND AN ALLUSION TO THIS ONE: Its like the end of 13th Warrior where the final battle ends suddenly because the lead bad guy is killed and his men ride off. Many people I know hate the film because the battle is cut so short and seemingly out of left field, but if you think about it, that is what would happen. The same goes here, you find out whats happening and you'll either love it because it makes sense or you hate it because it seems to come from left field, but really doesn't. END SPOILERSWith all of the Horror films coming out of Japan and elsewhere I'm shocked that this one never was released here in th US, especially in light of the fact that legendary make-up effects man Dick Smith was responsible for the effects.If you love haunted house thrillers and well plotted ghost stories that actually play fair then see this movie. I know its difficult to do but its worth the effort to find it, its one of the great lost jewels of horror.