I knew I was in for one cheesy, incompetently made film, when, in the opening sequence that supposedly takes place a good 25-30 years ago, the house used appears to be less than two years old. Believe me, I am not that stupid that I cannot recognize the architectural difference between a house built in the 60's or 70's and one built in the 2000's. Anyway, the film opens with a child being abused by his father in the basement of this house. Flash forward to some years later. The kid, Jimmy Burns, is all grown up now and heads back to his childhood house to seek revenge on his father. However, the house (which looks exactly like it did in the opening sequence) is now occupied by a young couple. The wife is going away for the weekend for business, leaving the husband alone. Unfortunately, Jimmy Burns breaks into the house and takes refuge in the basement, killing anyone who happens to stumble upon him, including a repairman and a couple of nosy neighbors.
The Good: I'm not sure. If you are going to twist my arm, I am going to have to say the twist at the end of the film, which was a nice, cruel touch. Oh...and the performance by Robert D'Zar, who plays the elder Jimmy Burns-the one responsible for abusing his son and turning him into a serial killer. Quite effective and he plays the part well.
The Bad: Where to begin, where to begin. First, I just can't get over the whole house thing. It is SOOO obvious that it is newly constructed house. OK...I'll shut up about it. The kills are extremely lame with horrible FX. Sorry, no way a champaign bottle is going to go into a skull and no way a dryer door will decapitate you. I don't know about you, but if a serial killer was hacking people up in my house, complete with some pretty aggressive chases around the place, I would probably notice something out of place. The acting is pretty bad from everyone involved (save D'Zar), particularly from the dude playing Detective Watts (Brent Douglas). Wow. Even worse, he has to act a scene along side D'Zar that illustrates just how horrible he is. There are no scares to be found here at all. The entire production looks cheap and lazy and there is nothing remotely interesting offered in the film that makes it keep your attention. It was hard to sit through because of the ineptness of the whole thing, though the ending somewhat offered it some redemption, but not enough to make me recommend it.
Avoid this film unless it is your mission to watch every low budget slasher film you can. There is nothing redeeming here, as the film does nothing more than offer an inept plot with boring characters, bad acting, and even worse special effects.
My Grade: F
