HOME SWEET HELL

US, 2015, 98 minutes, Colour.
Katherine Heigl, Patrick Wilson, James Belushi, Jordana Brewster, A.J.Buckley, Kevin Mc Kidd.
Directed by Anthony Burns.

Home Sweet Hell is not what an audience might be expected from Katherine Heigl, even though she appears as an assassin with Ashton Kutcher in The Killers.

The setting is suburban America, home sweet home where Katherine Heigl is Mona, obsessive about cleanliness in the house, her children’s discipline, where her husband, Don, Patrick Wilson, manages a furniture shop, assisted by James Belushi. He hires an assistant, played by Jordana Brewster, who seduces him – all part of a plan to blackmail him with her thug friends.

When Mona discovers the truth after Don’s confession, she is to wreak revenge on Dusty, trying to poison her, this failing and her urging Don to kill her with a hammer, which he cannot do. She can and does. There are further complications with the killing of the thugs, cover-ups with the police, which Don is particularly adept at, smiling and lying at the same time, leaving all the blood work to Mona.

The film was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek murder story, has its laughs as well is its bloodthirsty sequences.

1. A black comedy? Ordinary situations, heightened, romantic, macabre, violent and bloody?

2. The American city, affluent home, furniture shop, strip club, police precincts? The musical score?

3. The title and its irony?

4. The plausibility of the plot – and the exaggerations? Mona and her character, wife and mother, obsessive, vengeful, controlling, violent?

5. Don, average husband and father, manager of the shop, working with Les, hiring Dusty? Her come-on, the affair, the consequences, the experience of the violence?

6. The shop, furniture, Les and his work, Dusty arriving, asking for the job, the men attracted to her, her joy in her first sale?

7. Mona and Don, the children, at home, meals, Mona and her discipline and threats? The party?

8. The truth about Dusty, her colleagues, the plans, the seduction, the blackmail? Thugs and their house, going to the strip joint, drinking, sex, violence?

9. Don and the affair, Dusty and her come-on, Don wanting the money, trying to borrow from Les? Telling Mona the truth? Dusty appearing at the party, Mona’ behaviour towards her?
10. Mona, her background, her parents – and Don later asking about her parents effect on her and how she had become the way she was? The abduction of Dusty? The poison in the drink, Mona and her reaction to Don, collapse? The failure of the murder? Don getting the hammer, unable to kill Dusty, Mona doing it, the apron, all the blood? Cutting up the body? Later putting it in the freezer at the thugs’ home?

11. The police officer, his visits, friendship, enquiries, Don and his continued ability to cover up?

12. Dusty missing, the behaviour at the shop? The thugs coming to the shop, attacking Les thinking it was Don? The thugs wondering about Dusty and her absence? At the strip joint, the girls, their discussions, suspicions, the relationship with the girls, at home and at the bar?

13. The police officer, questioning Don about being at the bar, his suggestion of an affair, not telling Mona, the police agreeing?

14. Going to the house, Don in the car, Mona going into the house, stabbing the thug, and his bleeding and ringing and warning the others? The sword and
the death of the girl?

15. Mona and her calm, her hold over Don, the continuing at the shop, Les and his injuries?

16. Meanwhile, everything covered up – driving away from the house and the thug pursuing them? Leaving the future to the imagination of the audience?