Horror House

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Audience Member This Tigon film takes place in Swinging London as we see a bunch of twentysomethings at a party who then decide to liven things up by going to an old out of town mansion that is reported to be haunted. The backstory as to why is that the family who used to lived there twenty years previously had all been butchered by a family member.  Things go awry when the group decide to split up and explore the inside of the property with candles. Two members of the entourage are then killed with the rest fleeing the mansion in fear for their lives. The police then investigate. The film explores an interesting conceit that the group members who weren't murdered and escaped now have to grapple with regarding the murderer. Was it someone already at the mansion or more shockingly, was it a member of their group? Paranoia and ennui ensue.  The version of this film that I saw was a 2K restoration and looked gorgeous. The colour palate for the film is shown off beautifully with the finest in late 60's mind expanding fashions being shown in all their glory. The interior design is just as 'of the moment'.  Frankie Avallone stars as the only Yank in the film (he also looks like he's been beamed in from the 1950's) whilst his co-stars include Richard O'Sullivan and Jill Haworth. The kills are just as lurid, colourful and 'pop art' as the fashions with the blood being bright vivid red and very paint like. It's aesthetically pleasing and reminds me of the blood used in George A Romero's masterpiece Dawn of the Dead a few years later. But whilst the film looks great and acts as a time capsule for what was going on in 1969 (albeit a sanitised filmmaker's version), the rest of the film is a bit pedestrian. The police investigate, the groovy bunch decide to go back to the mansion to look for clues (!) and then the film concludes (no ending spoiler here). It's mostly unremarkable with bland characters, not much plot and middle of the road dialogue. A bit like one of the groovy beautiful characters in the cast, the film looks great but is quite empty. A shame. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review steve d Surprising end but deeply uninteresting characters and weak storytelling lead to a forgettable horror pick with little to recommend it. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Weak horror film is mainly interesting because of how closely the plot hews to the teen body count horror film formula long before the formula was firmly established a decade later with the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" films. Frankie Avalon and a group of British teens go to an old mansion where they are then killed one by one. Who is the murderer? (SPOILER ALERT!) I was really hoping it would be Frankie of Beach Party fame, but sadly it was not. Writer/director Michael Armstrong, the man who made the notorious (and poorly made in my opinion) "Mark of the Devil," delivers another weak film here. I do think this film could have been better if Armstrong got his original choice of David Bowie as the killer. Unfortunately AIP felt Bowie would clash with Frankie. Too bad. That might have made this a much more memorable of film. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Dull and horribly dated. We could have had Bowie in this but were stuck with Frankie Avalon instead. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member EARLY TEENAGE SLASHER FLICK THAT'S WORTH A LOOK--Swanky, Mod British Giallo/Slasher!! Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member The Haunted House of Horror (Michael Armstrong, 1969) I watched the first half of this a few months ago. At least, I think I did; the DVR was stopped halfway through it, but I cannot for the life of me remember doing so, and now, watching it again, I don't remember actually seeing any of this. And there's no one else in the house who would be interested in a bunch of mods traipsing (or stumbling) through an abandoned castle with a serial killer on the loose. So this really is the most forgettable film ever, or someone in my house was really, really bored one night. I'm going with the former hypothesis, mostly because no one around here ever gets that bored. And because, having just watched the first hour again, I still don't remember anything about it, save the presence of Veronica Doran. There's a certain stripe of actress who always gets cast to play the plain/dowdy/frumpy/contrast-to-the-beauty-queen role that I find almost unbearably gorgeous, and who often ends up eclipsing the beauty queen in my estimation. (The obvious example from more recent movies is the radiant Janeane Garofalo.) That's Doran here, playing the chubby social misfit with only slightly bad teeth who's playing against beauty queens Jill Haworth and Gina Warwick. (Oh, yeah, did I mention the entire movie is a vehicle for Frankie Avalon, who as an actor is one of the most forgettable ever to grace a screen?) As for the plot, I basically gave it away in the intro; a bunch of mods go traipsing about a supposedly haunted house after a boring party, and someone's going around killing them. Unfortunately, they don't actually get to the haunted house until about half an hour into this mess, and the first death doesn't occur until fifteen minutes after that. Which is probably why I completely forgot the first bit, which is the boring party. Here's a hint: if your characters are sitting around complaining that your party is boring, the audience will probably find it so as well. (Compare the party scene in Shriek of the Mutilated, one of my favorite awful films. It's hackneyed, but at least it's interesting.) But, oh, Veronica Doran, I could watch you read the phone book. In fact, I'd prefer it to seeing this mess again, despite it containing a death scene you just do not expect in a movie from 1969. Director Armstrong found a bit more success as a screenwriter later on in his career, including being one of the guys who penned the underrated Lifeforce, but the obscurity into which The Haunted House of Horror has faded is all too well-deserved. Could someone get Veronica Doran a phone book and have her started reading, please? * 1/2 Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Horror House

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