Saturday, October 13

Some screenshots from the rare U.S. DVD of Home Sweet Home (1980)

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Here's a budget DVD released back in 2006 by an outfit called "Hollywood Entertainment" that flew under the radar. Nettie Peña's 1980 slasher is really only known for two things. Before there was enough chatter after Eli Roth's Thanksgiving trailer in Grindhouse (2007) for the video market to crank out a couple junky holiday-themed horror flicks, Home Sweet Home (aka Slasher in the House) was only example in the genre that actually took place on the day gullets are stuffed with turkey and mashed potatoes.

Who began the mayhem in such of a time of excess and family tension around the dinner table? An escaped mental patient raging on PCP played by the musclebound Jake Steinfeld. The voice and physique behind Body by Jake weight loss programs and fitness equipment. Other than those aspects, this stuffy outing from the early '80s slasher boom isn't as bad as the IMDB 3.5/10 suggests, but its drift into obscurity is probably due to its extremely formulaic delivery. Still, I've watched it a few times over the years since finding the old VHS.

I found this out-of-print DVD at a yard sale this morning and almost didn't pick it up since the terrible cover looks nothing like the original Media Home Entertainment VHS box (seen here at VHSCollector.com). The presentation here is very similar to that old murky tape release, but doesn't have any of the usual VHS-related defects. This slightly better picture quality might indicate the actual film-to-video master tape Media used for their 1985 release being used for this disc. There's some interlacing, compression artifacts, and a few instances of the entire picture becoming "digitally corrupted" for a split-second. The stereo track is on par with the VHS and there's zero extras (not even chapter stops).



1 comment:

DrunkethWizerd said...

It would be interesting to hear Body By Jake's thoughts on this one... or perhaps seeing his reaction to that last picture you posted.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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