Hard Home is, in a way, a bit of a reverse Saw… the mother of a victim of a serial killer sets up an elaborate trap in her Smart Home to trap and torment the killer. On the other hand, I guess Saw was always about tormenting the bad guys. Hmm. Maybe it’s more of a reverse home invasion? I dunno.

What it is most definitely is overly long for an 83 minute film. It has pretty solid moments in its suspense thriller narrative but also too much downtime / flashbacks… and a majority the overproduced/over-scored sequences lack visual pacing. It never hits as hard as it seems to think it does.

Simone Kessel as our bad-ass mother is pretty good in her scrappy action scenes. These down-n-dirty moments are almost enough to nudge the film into recommended territory. But there aren’t enough of them.

But there’s something – a tiny bit of a thing – that made me kind of enjoy certain elements of this otherwise belabored flick. Would I recommend it? Not really… maybe if you like the actress and/or want to see a cat-and-mouse game with the mouse being the psycho killer. Otherwise, it’s just another meh thriller.

Score: 73