Sweet Home: The Awesome Movie that Inspired Resident Evil

Sweet Home, also known as The Mamiya House, is a Japanese horror film. It was released in 1989, and the home video release was the subject of a lawsuit. Parts of the film were re-shot and re-edited for video and TV releases. The director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, sued the production company over this, but lost.

A video game adaptation, which I’ll play at some point, was published by Capcom in 1989. The game’s director watched the film and was allowed to use what he wanted. This game is the inspiration for other survival horror games, most notably the Resident Evil series.

I’m watching the movie for the first time for this review. For what it is, I think this is a very good horror movie. There are a few things that I didn’t get. Thankfully, the movie has subtitles, but there are a few cultural references that don’t make much sense to me. Stuff like this happens with every foreign film, and it doesn’t really detract from the quality of the film.

Plot Summary

This is a fairly standard plot for a haunted house movie. A group of people enters an abandoned house where something horrific took place, and there happens to be a ghost there. The backstory is where things get a little original, and about halfway through, we get some more exposition about what took place.

At the beginning of the movie, we meet our documentary filmmakers who want to get inside Mamiya Manor to restore the art there and make a film about the place. It is a little unclear what they want to do, and this might be due to my taking notes while I was watching. Once we get to the manor, we meet our cast of people who are probably going to die:

• Kazuo – He’s the bumbling director, and according to my notes, he is the Dumb Guy.
• Emi – She is Kazuo’s daughter. Her mom died when she was a kid, and she is helping her dad while on summer vacation.
• Ryo – I kept calling this guy a Spirit Holloween M. Bison in my notes because of what he’s wearing. He’s full of bad ideas, and he creeps on the “hot girl” that they bring along.
• Akiko – She is the smart person in the group. Also, she happens to be our heroine.
• Asuka – I don’t know what to make of this character. She’s a reporter, professional art restorer, and might be psychic. Lady Mamiya possesses her at some point, I think, because that is the only way her actions make sense.
• Kenichi – This is a quirky old man who owns a gas station near the manor. He is one of the only characters who knows what is going on and has a plan. I’m not sure if he is to be Ichiro Mamiya or not. It would make sense, but the dialogue in the film doesn’t support this idea.
• Lady Mamiya – The restless spirit of the film.

Once they get to the house, the film tosses in some funny moments and sets up a death scene. It is rather light-hearted for about half of the movie. Things are kept vague, aside from the owners of the manor dying.

There is some creepy imagery, and it feels like Lady Mamiya is possessing Asuka. After they find and start restoring the painting, she wanders out in the middle of the night and digs up the grave of a dead baby. She freaks out a few times, and then the others rebury the baby.

We get the reason why our group of characters can’t leave the manor, and people start dying. The effects on the dead bodies looked great! The ghost can burn/melt people, and it looks awesome!

This all builds up to our heroine having to save Emi from the ghost, because Lady Mamiya wants he child back. Kenichi, the best character in the film, dies, and eventually Akiko figures out how to defeat the ghost.

This movie feels more like Silent Hill than Resident Evil. The way Lady Mamiya looks at the end makes me think of a Silent Hill boss. The ghost gets her son back, and we end with our survivors wandering off into the woods.     

Cultural References

A lot of this has to do with the Old Man. The stuff with the spirits and the dead child was fine. I was a little unclear about the shrine or whatever the rocks are to be doing, but since most ghost stories have something to do with a desecrated grave, it wasn’t overly confusing.

There are two moments when the Old Man shows up in the movie. He shows up about an hour into the film and quickly becomes the best character. We’re first told he has a talisman that “might” protect him from ghosts. It looks like a sex toy that your weird aunt and uncle would have on their coffee table, and it doesn’t really do anything.

Near the end of the film, the Old Man decides that he is going to save one of the other characters and defeat the ghost. He starts singing a song and crushes a bottle with his bare hands. I watched this, and had no idea what was going on, but at least it impressed the other characters and made them think they had a chance.

It would be interesting to see this in a Western remake. I wonder what they would do with this, and I would love to know what the significance of this song is. To me, it felt random, and I wasn’t sure why this briefly gave the guy superhuman strength.

Wrap Up

Sweet Home is a fun horror movie. The special effects are great, and the story is pretty good. There are a few things that don’t make much sense, but they don’t take away from the plot or the things that I enjoy.

This game is only available on YouTube, as far as I know. The theatrical version is lost, and the movie was only available on VHS and Laser Disc as far as I can tell. Thankfully, you can find it on YouTube, and it has been subtitled. Here is a link to the film (Link).

I’m excited to see what the game is like! I can’t wait to see how close it is to the movie. At some point, I’ll get to it, and hopefully I’ll enjoy it.

If you liked this post, please check out my other posts about horror movies and games, such as the Resident Evil Movie or Resident Evil on the PS1.