GWAI MUK

In Hong Kong they don’t have enough room for haunted houses, so they have haunted luxury high-rise apartment blocks instead. It’s into one such complex that yuppie couple May and Ray move with their utterly adorable five-year-old son Chi Lo. That’s the setup for Home Sweet Home, and even before the happy family finishes lugging all their boxes into the elevator, there’s trouble. Little Chi Lo sees something – or someone – lurking in the elevator shaft. May is a skittish and high-strung mom, a worrier. She has trouble mixing with the other yuppie housewives and looks to a birthday party for her neighbor’s daughter as a way to break the ice. At the rooftop party, she watches Chi Lo disappear over the parapet. The weird thing: He doesn’t fall. He is grabbed and pulled. When the police look for a splattered corpse at ground level they find nothing. (...) Home Sweet Home is scary in all kinds of ways, but it’s most effective on the psychological level, delivering its shocks in Rosemary’s Baby-ish ways that elicit not only fear but also sadness and sympathy. If you’ve ever considered living in a high-rise apartment building, this movie will surely change your mind. (Don Willmott)