Sweet Home (1989)

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Movie
German title Sweet home
Original title ス ウ ィ ー ト ホ ー ム
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1989
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
script Kiyoshi Kurosawa
production Jūzō Itami
music Masaya Matsuura
camera Yonezō Maeda
cut Akira Suzuki
occupation

Sweet Home ( Japanese ス ウ ィ ー ト ホ ー ム , Suwīto Hōmu for English "Sweet Home") is a Japanese horror film by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and producer Jūzō Itami from 1989. The film was released at the same time as the computer role-playing game " Sweet Home " , both products are closely linked in terms of content and creativity.

action

A small film crew , consisting of the director Kazuo , his daughter Emi , the producer Akiko , the photographer Ryō and the art restorer and reporter Asuka , wants to make a documentary about the artist Ichirō Mamiya , who died 30 years ago . He had hidden several priceless frescoes in his huge villa and died shortly afterwards in a mysterious way. Exactly how he died is unknown, but it appears that his death is linked to the suicide of his beloved wife. Kazuo succeeds in buying the key to the mansion at an auction - however, he was the only bidder; no other auction participant dares to enter the villa.

The team reaches the villa and immediately explores the house. A short time later, the team found the frescoes and Asuka and Ryō began their work immediately. But during the filming and restoration work, inexplicable incidents occur and Asuka seems to be possessed by an evil spirit: she digs up a baby corpse in front of the house entrance and sleepwalking again and again. Soon after, she and Ryō die and Emi is kidnapped. A seedy old man named Ken'ichi, who runs a nearby gas station, explains to Kazuo and Akiko what exactly happened 30 years ago: Ichirō's wife, known only as Lady Mamiya , had lost her one-year-old son when he was in the house's huge stove and was burned. She was to blame for this after failing to check the stove before lighting it. In her anger and sadness, Lady Mamiya went mad and began to kidnap and kill small children from the area, believing that she could give playmates to her deceased son. The residents of the surrounding villages finally caught her and drove her furiously into the house. When they tried to grab the perpetrator, Lady Mamiya threw herself into the stove. However, her confused and desperate mind remained behind in the house, still searching for the deceased son. Ichirō died a little later while working on the frescoes of a heart attack. Ken'ichi, Kazuo and Akiko now suspect that Lady Mamiya kidnapped Emi because she wanted a surrogate child. However, the three Emis see life in danger and so they decide to free the girl. However, when the spirit of Lady Mamiya takes solid form, Kazuo is frightened and runs away. Ken'ichi melts alive before Akiko's eyes, although he had a powerful protective amulet with him. Akiko finally comes up with the saving idea of ​​bringing the coffin of Lady Mamiya's son along with the corpse into the house to hand over to the mother. But the house collapses in places and Akiko only manages to open the stove in which Emi is trapped with difficulty. Finally Lady Mamiya appears and presses Akiko, a bitter fight for Emi ensues. Only when Emi hands the coffin with the corpse of her son over to the ghost of Lady Mamiya does the ghost calm down. Finally he disappears and Akiko and Emi can leave the house. They meet Kazuo again in front of the entrance to the mansion and all three run away.

background

“Sweet Home” was the first haunted house-style film that Kiyoshi Kurosawa had made and made a major debut with his work. Kurosawa's work was heavily influenced by classics such as The Haunting by Robert Wise from 1963 and Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist from 1982. Despite the numerous Hollywood influences, "Sweet Home" is still considered a traditional haunted house movie in Japan. In the documentary "Building the inferno" from 2006, Kyoshi Kurosawa revealed that he originally wanted to ask the no less well-known production designer Haruyasu Kurosawa for his support. Unfortunately, Haruyasu was very busy with his own television productions, so that he could not find enough time.

At the same time as the film was released in 1989, a computer role-playing game with the same name "Sweet Home" was released, which was distributed by Capcom for the Famicon . Film and game have immense similarities in content, which is due to the fact that the producer Jūzō Itami had worked on both works, so film and game came from the same pen. There is, however, ongoing debate about which came out first, the movie or the game. The reason for this is, on the one hand, that the day and date of the film's release are missing (the game came out on December 15, 1989). On the other hand, the advertising for the game and the film was put together from excerpts from both and the game advertised the film and vice versa.

Both the film and the game can be assigned to the traditional scheme of the "vengeful spirit". This type goes back to Japanese legends, such as the "white-mouthed woman" ( Kuchisake-onna ). This female yōkai is u. a. said to kidnap and torture young children. Also in “Sweet Home” a vengeful and child-killing mother plays the main enemy role, the male protagonists turn out to be rather weak and useless. A traditional social scheme is taken up, namely the call to return from modern, western-looking (supposed) over-modernization back to old traditions: The Kazuo film crew uses the most modern equipment and fails miserably, the old Yamamura, on the other hand, relies on willpower and magical amulets and can weaken the enemy after all. The storyline of "Sweet Home" inspired many Japanese directors in their later works of the same genre, notable examples are Ju-on , Apartment 1303 and Carved . The film and game also served as a direct template for the famous Resident Evil series (known in Japan under the title "Biohazard"); in fact, the first part of Resident Evil was initially planned as a new edition, then as a sequel to "Sweet Home". But then Resident Evil was designed and published as a new, independent game series.

production

The film was shot in the Tōhō studios, one of the oldest and largest film studios in Japan. In the west, it is best known for its kaiju (monster films like Godzilla ). It was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa , Jūzō Itami was in charge of production and Akira Suzuki was in charge of editing . Masaya Matsuura composed the music, Yonezō Maeda was in charge of the camera, and Etsuko Egawa and Kazuhiro Tsuji were responsible for the mask . Nothing is known about financial success or awards.

literature

  • Jay McRoy: Japanese Horror Cinema . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (UK) 2005, ISBN 0748619941
  • Colette Balmain: Introduction to Japanese Horror Film . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (UK) 2008, ISBN 0748624759 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Background information on Sweet Home
  2. ↑ a b Trivia on Sweet Home in the IMDb database (English)
  3. ↑ Sweet Home (game) on GameFAQs (English)
  4. ^ Colette Balmain: Introduction to Japanese Horror Film . Pp. 113, 128 & 133.
  5. ↑ Jay McRoy: Japanese Horror Cinema . P. 3.