Rent Home Sweet Home (2012)

Spoilers follow ... - Home Sweet Home review by NP

Cash-strapped Gwen (Alexandra Boylan) has no choice but to return to her isolated family home, but finds Kristi (Raquel Cantu) is living there and has no intention of leaving. We know Kristi is bad news when we see, in the introduction, her robbing a grocery store with her beau Van (Christopher Dempsey) and treating the event as a joke.

‘Home Sweet Home’ is an intriguing curiosity. For once, the attractive blond girl isn’t the victim but the frightening casual, sexually provocative home invader who seems always one step ahead. Aside from turning in a terrific performance, Boylan co-writes this, and Director John K.D. Graham gives it an at times unusual visual flair that belies the low budget.

As with many things in life, there are occasional gaps in logic. Just while the two aggressors do what they do is unclear, other than they’re crazy and they want to keep living in Gwen’s deceased parents’ house – and neither is the fact that, believing the two are outside in the grounds somewhere, Gwen decides to sleep in the un-curtained living room with the lights on (not that Gwen’s to know, but Kristi and Van appear to already be inside anyway).

Kristi is a wonderfully evil creation. She gets a sexual thrill out of her villainy but gives not a jot when Van is of no further use to her. The ending, slightly confused though it is, suggests that her allure is still not without its uses …