Year released: 2010
THE CHARGE: Taking advantage of a killer real estate market
THE EVIDENCE: Young urban professional Cheng, working multiple jobs, finally scrapes up what she thinks is enough cash for a down payment on a luxury apartment. Sadly, a sudden surge in the housing market jacks up the price and puts it out of her financial reach. But she REALLY wants this apartment. She wants it so badly, she'd be willing to kill or die for it. Well, maybe not die...
You see, this apartment has special meaning to Cheng. It's the kind of apartment she promised her parents she would someday live in, one she promised they could live in when they grew old. She wasn't able to keep that promise to them before they passed away, but getting it presents a form of psychological and emotional retribution for her.
Distraught by her goal slipping out of her grasp, Cheng figures out a rather ingenious way to bring down the property value of the apartment building: kill all the inhabitants! After all, who would want to live in a building where a crazed killer could still be on the loose? It's a pretty ingenious plan and you've got to give her an 'A' for initiative. But actually killing everyone and not getting caught... that kind of turns out to be the hard part.
The scar on the other side looks like Hello Kitty.
Dream Home put a big goofy smile on my face as I watched it seamlessly transition from family drama to sociopathic slasher to social commentary to splatstick comedy. Not many movies are able to pull off such frequent shifts in tone, but director Pang Ho-cheung effectively uses it to paint a complete picture of his psychotic anti-heroine. I may not agree with her methods but by the time the blood started to flow, I fully understood - and was even sympathetic toward - her motivation.
But that's not to say that the character of Cheng is sympathetic. On the contrary, she's a stone cold sociopath and the film's use of flashbacks to explain how she got to this desperate point in her life also show her to be capable of chilling and brutal behavior long before that. Ultimately, this is a story about how a desperate person reacts to desperate situations with a very pointed statement on how society is at least partly to blame. Nothing like a little dose of guilt to add some weight to the bloodshed, right?
"Actually, that's a knife in your back, but I *am* also happy to see you."
And speaking of bloodshed... this little lassie puts Jason Vorhees to shame! Relying mostly on household items readily at hand to dispatch her victims - including one very disturbing death by vacuum cleaner asphyxiation - Cheng's murderous rampage is creative, visceral and occasionally hilarious. CGI is a bit overused in these scenes but it also manages to bring a stylized artistry to some of the violence.
The movie's blend of pitch black comedy, social awareness and gore-soaked visuals creates a cinematic stew worth feasting on. I'll admit that the whiplash-inducing swings from heavy handed discourse to almost Looney Tunes style mayhem may be a bit much for some viewers, but Dream Home is one of my favorite films of the last 10 years and I think it's well worth hunting down.
THE VERDICT: Dream Home is NOT GUILTY of bursting the housing bubble, but manages to pop a fair share of gurgling blood bubbles while cutting throats in this cutthroat satire.
