This is the story of what may well be one of the most insane housing markets on Earth, and a study in just how far people will go for that perfect place to call home. It’s Dream Home, and the folks out at IFC sent out a copy ahead of its release.

Dream Home follows Cheng Lai-Sheung, a Hong Kong native who longs to get a piece of property of her own out in Hong Kong’s beautiful–and deeply expensive–Victoria Harbor. A harbor view apartment in Hong Kong goes for a lot of cash, and so Cheng saves her money and works several jobs to save the dough. And after a whole lot of scrimping, saving, and patience, she’s finally got the deposit together…until the owners suddenly hike the price. Her dream now destroyed through no fault of her own, this sends Cheng over the edge into a frenzy of murder, with her weapon of choice being home construction items.

Sadly, this is nowhere near as much fun as the plot description suggests. Yes, Cheng’s killings will be downright brutal and nasty, to paraphrase Hobbes, but they will also be short. The first half of Dream Home is mostly dull, and only occasionally punctuated by Cheng’s vicious home improvement murders.

Clearly, the Hong Kong film market is out of practice in horror; last I knew, horror movies were illegal in China to begin with, though Hong Kong, thanks to its former territorial status, has some special rules. The situation is complex to say the least and I am so not a lawyer. Anyway, the first half of Dream Home is dull, as I said, but the second half gets cranked up pretty nicely–maybe even a little too nicely. The second half of Dream Home is jammed full of physical impossibility killing.  And when I say “physical impossibility killing”, I mean things that seem like they shouldn’t be possible, like a smallish Chinese woman managing to ram a screwdriver into the back of a person’s skull and going out through the eye socket.  Or said smallish Chinese woman managing to use a human skull to shatter a toilet bowl in one strike.

A bit outlandish, sometimes boring, Dream Home isn’t half bad in terms of slasher fare, and if they could have done something a bit more interesting with the first half, they really would have had a winner here. The last fifteen minutes alone are a masterful series of twists.

But as is so often the case, the Screenhead Ten Scale looks at half a great movie and half a dull one and gives the whole thing a six out of ten for doing a pretty decent overall job.