Movie Review: Sweet Home – Don't Go In Old Apartment Buildings

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: May 8, 2015

Rating: NR?

Director: Rafa Martinez

Alicia works for the Spanish government as some type of housing inspector. She's tasked with visiting with an old and deciding if the building he lives in is safe or should be condemned. While checking out the building, she finds an almost hidden apartment. The man tells her that a couple started constructing the apartment and got shut down for doing it illegally. Though the building is safe to live in, she warns him that the owner wants him out and that it might be best to just move.

Finding that hidden apartment turns out to be a stroke of luck. She and her boyfriend Simon want to celebrate their anniversary but agreed to not spend a lot of money. After meeting with him later that night, she takes him to the hidden apartment and tells him that it's their chance to get away and have a romantic time together without worrying about money. Their chance at romance quickly fades as a group of bloodthirsty serial killers quickly descends on them in the middle of the night with the goal of killing them both.

Let's just get this out of the way right now, I didn't like Sweet Home. It started out fine, then started dragging, and by the time it got to the action, I didn't really care. I'm fine with films that start out slow and slowly build up to the action, but this one felt like it just took too long to get going. At one point, I checked the time and it was already 30 minutes into the movie and nothing had really happened. It's also a fairly ridiculous idea for a movie. I don't know about you readers out there, but if my significant other took me to an almost abandoned building for a romantic rendezvous, I think I would just leave. It's also hard to believe that this place could have running water or even electricity.

Despite the first half going so slow, the second half really amped up the action. Once we finally learned about the people in the building and found out that they were following the couple, the story got a lot more interesting. One of the more disturbing scenes came when one character – I won't name any names – dies after being thrown over the side of a staircase and falling several stories. Though you will need to suspend your disbelief when that character manages to stay along for like an hour after that just to pass something along to another character. As gruesome as the original scene was, I had to roll my eyes at that point.

While Sweet Home is a foreign flick, it's Spanish, it only has a few subtitles. Alicia talks to a few people in Spanish, but most of the film uses English. If you're like me and tend to do other things while watching flicks, you'll find that helpful.

Despite having an interesting story surrounding killers stalking a couple trapped in a building, Sweet Home isn't one I would recommend.