Have you ever seen a movie you once anticipated and ended up wanting to arrest the whole crew? That was exactly how I felt during and after watching the movie Home Sweet Home: Rebirth.
Before I went for this movie, I had seen its posters on Facebook and enough hype, especially with the supernatural talk and the displays on the poster—coupled with the fact that it has a stretch to Thailand. Oh yeah, Thailand movies are good. Most importantly, it had a zombie theme, so I went for it, only to hop in and watch a very 'unrealistic' storyline. Please don’t get me wrong—I know most movies are fictional, with unrealistic stories as it relates to our world and the supernatural world. But this one, in particular, was a bit strange, with a combination of hell talk, zombies, and a chronic, computerized devil-like demon.
Jake, a policeman in the U.S., and his family—his wife, Prang and little baby, Loo—decided to spend their holiday in Thailand, their grandma’s hometown. They landed in Thailand and, on their first trip to explore the city before going to their grandma’s home, Jake met a monk who gave him a prophecy, saying he was the one who could close the gate of hell and that he would lose his family very soon. Yeah, it was strange to Jake and unbelievable, so he dismissed it.
Right in the mall they were in, a guy(an agent of the devil) appeared from nowhere and started shooting everyone to death, and that was how the zombie breakout began. How did that happen? What’s the relationship? Absolutely no idea.
Jake, upon seeing that the guy was killing everyone, told his family to hide in one of the rooms so he could go and stop him. That was it, he went, and in the process, he got killed and found himself in another world that looked exactly like the world he was in before he died. Interestingly, he died without knowing that he died.
The story continues with him and Chan (the monk guy) trying to find a way to close the gate of hell.
The storyline sounds interesting, right? Yeah, it does—but the poor linking of the various aspects spoiled it. How do I mean?
Okay, there was a gate of hell that needed to be closed by a chosen one who just traveled from the U.S. to Thailand for a holiday? A gate of hell—in this modern world? Haaaa!
Okay, let’s say all that was the supernatural angle that needed a bit of brain-racking to fully understand the flow of the movie. One of the poorest and most uninteresting aspects of the movie is the demon used. The demon was so mighty and excessively computerized. I found it very awkward, especially with the way it was crashing down buildings.
Another issue is Jake’s acting. I had to pause the movie to go and search if I was watching a dubbed version—like if the original language wasn’t English, and a bit of it was in Thai. Jake was so poor in his acting, especially with how fake his voice sounded in the scenes with the monk. Didn’t they rehearse those scenes before shooting? That’s so bad.
Jake’s wife and their little girl, Loo, were top-notch in their acts. They made me want to keep watching with their emotional survival runs. So real!
These are just my opinions, and some people may have a better rating of this movie, as I have seen it hyped a lot on social media.
I loved the ending where they showed how hell looks. I think that correlated with what I have in my head. Lol.
I would rate it a 1.9/10.
Trailer;
Thanks for reading.
Other photos are screenshots.