Dream Home lost me in two ways. First, it took me awhile to realize that the slasher parts of the film actually transpired at a later time than many of the events of the film. There are ongoing events and flashbacks, but I didn’t realize that the slasher events were either flashforwards or concurrent to the events of the film. If a time stamp wasn’t placed on the flashbacks, I think that I would have figured it out sooner. Second I thought the concept was clever, but ultimately I didn’t buy that the main character would become a killer. I actually know a woman with an extreme fixation on buying a house-complete with ignoring the realities of being a homeowner. If it doesn’t have DSM-IV code, it should. The person genuinely believes that buying a home will restore all the things lost in the past and solve all current problems. A key part of enjoying a movie is being able to buy into the world of that movie, and I couldn’t. Dream Home seemed to be making some commentary about the literal violence of the film with the economic world: its exploitation of the lower classes, gentrification, impending victimization of the middle class as they prepare to enter an upside down mortgage deal, but it felt like it was a veneer for what it really wanted to do: be a traditional slasher film where you get punished for having sex, taking drugs, committing adultery or being part of the gentrifying class. In the end, the story didn’t work for me.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
She doesn’t kill the people who refuse to accept her real estate offer. She doesn’t kill her lover, a cheating businessman. She kills people who work and live in the building that she wants to live in and she does it in a very brutal fashion, but not in any strategic way, i.e. I want that view so I’m going to kill these people so I can get a vacancy and make a bid. She kills security guards, policemen, party boys and girls, a pregnant woman and the pregnant woman’s golfing/cheating husband. My gut tells me that these murders ARE symbolically connected to her in some way-perhaps they are people that she doesn’t want to be or has rejected as part of her life. She refuses to get the apartment by being someone’s barefoot and pregnant wife being cheated on. She refuses a mindless party mentality of excess. So she kills them. Ultimately it does not work because the connection to her pre-murderer self to her victims is tenuous at best. Pre-murderer main character and murderer main character only share the same goal-anger at not getting an apartment, but nothing else except for the death of her father, which was the only convincing death that I believed that she would play a role in. There is some gender commentary, but it seems to be superficial-the killer is a woman, but otherwise her killing is very traditional albeit transgressive in victim choice. I think Dream Home’s filmmakers really wanted to break taboos–we’re going to kill a pregnant lady, we’re going to stab a guy while he has sex with a woman. Dream Home is more about sex with a cerebral, respectable veneer of economic commentary. The main character is surrounded by sex when she isn’t at home-she is more like a flesh light to her lover than a person, but like most slasher killers, she only seems to derive satisfaction with her blade. Think Kill Bill Vol 1 regarding penetration. Dream Home does get its jollies off when she impales various victims, particularly at literal climax. Dream Home is real exploitation cinema. Not a must see unless you miss the Italian mindless Italian slasher horror films that only successfully pushed the violence envelope, but nothing more in my opinion.