Home Sweet Home: Rebirth

I was not familiar with this 2025 movie titled "Home Sweet Home: Rebirth" prior to sitting down to watch it. And not knowing anything about the movie, I harbored zero expectations. But I will say that I found the movie's cover/poster interesting enough to actually draw my attention.

Initially I had thought that this movie was a sequel or something, given the 'rebirth' part of the title, but that was apparently not the case. Turns out that it was apparently based on a game.

The storyline in the movie was simplistic, almost to the point of being non-existing. Sure, it made for a fair enough viewing experience, but just don't expect to be using your brain during the 93 minutes that the movie ran for.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, a thing that I actually enjoy whenever I sit down to watch a movie. And the acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact that the actors and actresses had surprisingly little material to work with.

Visually then the movie was good. I definitely liked the special effects in the movie, though while looking good they hardly did much of anything to add to the lacking storyline.

"Home Sweet Home: Rebirth" is the type of movie that you watch once, and forget about within the coming 24 hours. Yeah, there just wasn't sufficient contents to the script or storyline to make this a memorable movie. And it most definitely is not a movie that you will sit down and watch a second time.

Watchable, sure, but a very forgettable movie at best.

My rating of directors Steffen Hacker and Alexander Kiesl's 2025 movie lands on a generous five out of ten stars.

I don't even know if this can be called a movie. What is this garbage? From the acting to the plot, the characters, the writing, I wouldn't even dare to call this a kids' movie. Kids' movies are way more fun to watch and at least have decent acting and a clear point to the story. But this? This is on another level of awfulness.

The only somewhat decent character was the wife. She acted weird at times, too, but at least she felt like the only human in this mess. Even that little girl was annoying. I have seen a lot of young girls or boys who are way more talented. The rest of the characters felt like aliens-anything but human. The way they responded, moved, even talked... it was all just off. Honestly, I felt embarrassed for these actors.

With better acting, this could've been a great experience, especially since the movie has some similarities to "The Green Lantern." But nope, this just felt like a complete waste of 90 minutes.

That's my honest POV after watching this... I don't even know what to call it, just straight-up garbage, tbh.

I watch a lot of movies but don't choose to write many reviews and prefer to leave that to more opinionated people. But this "movie" just begged in every way to be called out. After 90 grueling minutes I came to the conclusion that this movie was written and directed by people who had never actually met other human beings. Not a single line of dialog, interaction, decision or behavior seemed like anything normal people do. Every moment of character interaction felt so fake and lacked any connection to reality making the viewer's experience more like extended torture. There was not 1 likeable character and even the child was nerve gratingly annoying. There was no real plot and most staged scenes felt like they were done on no budget and used CGI to augment the missing elements but failed at every attempt. The fight/combat scenes were laughable jokes with nobody apparently able to fake actual impact. But I did get a big laugh at how the main "hero" (reminding me of Hudson of Hudson & Rex) completely abandons his family and doesn't even seem to care to think of them while the world is supposedly falling apart and he's doing his action hero schtick... badly. This movie feels like it was an overreach by everyone involved and they tried to fill in all the gaps in post with really bad fx work. But for me it didn't work in any way and was more anger inducing than entertaining.

After reading what the movie was about, I was excited to watch it. I'm prone to Morrone and his acting now so I paid him little attention, but I just want to ask. Are the female lead and male lead nepo babies? Because the acting was so atrocious that I had to immediately end the movie 30 mins in. Why spoil such a good movie plot on such terrible acting? My lord. Even the child couldn't act and I've seen younger kids act. I almost had to poke my eyes out. I don't usually stray from big movie productions cause of this same reason and it came to bite me in the back once again. I want back my 30 mins.😩

Home Sweet Home: Rebirth is a textbook example of style over substance. Even with the game-accurate monsters and demons faithfully recreated, they are used merely as visual callbacks to the source material. They kill a few people with brutal violence, but ultimately, their sole purpose seems to be to shout, "Hey, we're from a video game!" rather than serving any real narrative or suspenseful purpose.

Unfortunately, that's where the strengths end.

There's virtually no story to latch onto. We're thrown directly into the chaos without any meaningful setup, background, or buildup. Monsters and possessed people are hurled at the audience purely to generate cheap thrills, but with no emotional investment or structure, it all feels meaningless. It plays more like a cutscene montage than a cohesive film. Much like House of the Dead adaptations, it leans heavily on visual references to the game but forgets to tell an actual story.

The acting is serviceable for a lower-budget foreign production. The cast clearly tries, and while they're not A-list or international stars, they deliver decent performances given what little the script provides. Unfortunately, no amount of effort from the cast can save the hollow structure they're stuck inside.

While the cinematography and special effects are genuinely impressive, they're wasted without a strong story to support them. A more faithful, atmospheric adaptation of the original video game's Thai folklore and chilling atmosphere would have made for a much better film. Instead, Home Sweet Home: Rebirth feels like an empty, beautifully wrapped package with nothing meaningful inside.