Far from Home Reviews

Driving through the desert, a divorced father (Matt Frewer) and his pubescent daughter (Drew Barrymore) run out of gas, wind up in a sleazy trailer park, and battle a psycho--to whose point of view the audience is confined by the camera and thus can't see him. FAR FROM HOME isn't as bad as it might have been, but it could have been much better: though Frewer and Barrymore are uninspired as the leads, Susan Tyrrell (as the hilarious trailer-park owner) is well cast, as are Richard Masur as a strange but likable Vietnam vet; Jennifer Tilly and Karen Austin as another pair of stranded drivers; Dick Miller as a sheriff; and former Playboy Playmate Teri Weigel, who shows up for the film's sole nude scene. Bringing this motley bunch together is a script by Tommy Lee Wallace, who directed HALLOWEEN III. Nonetheless, FAR FROM HOME has little humor or genuine suspense. Wallace's script tries for subtlety in its central father-daughter relationship, but whether the script lacked the depth to follow through on this premise or whether director Meiert Avis simply decided to drop any pretense of characterization and just go for the jugular, the film soon abandons any interest in its characters to become just another low-budget stalk-and-slash movie, one in which the killer's identity will be obvious to anyone familiar with the genre.