Now this is why I went into the bad horror movie review business! I am smiling ear-to-ear right now, just thinking about HOUSE OF THE DAMNED. It is such an incredibly awful and utterly hilarious exercise in haunted house horror that you have to think that maybe the writer or director was playing a practical joke on us. But no, this one was clearly intended to be a serious and frightening horror movie. Now here is where the magic happens…HOUSE OF THE DAMNED fails so miserably and so spectacularly that you find yourself laughing out loud at its failure.
The film, and I use that term loosely, begins with two housekeepers driving up to an old home in rural Ireland. As they enter and begin to snoop around – they sense something odd about their surroundings. We know this because the camera keeps turning diagonally. Anytime a camera changes angle, something strange is afoot. After ten minutes of these two ladies snooping around the house, being attacked by rats, and getting strange looks from paintings, one of them finally is killed when her car suddenly explodes. Guess this guy had some money to burn as it would have been funnier to see them die by rats than the Godfather-esque car bomb.
Enter an American family – Will, Maura (whose ancestors used to live in the house) and their daughter Aubrey. They move into the house (by this time all traces of the dead housekeeper are gone and curiously never mentioned again) and it doesn’t take long before strange things start to happen. Most of these revolve around little Aubrey, who clearly comes from the Haley Joel Osment “I see Dead People” school of creepy-kid acting. Laugh all you want, but Osment could make some money franchising his style like that.
So, at this point, I think we should play a drinking game. Take a shot every time another movie is ripped off. Shot one: Aubrey has an imaginary friend (THE SHINING). Shot two: she and she alone at first can sense the spirits in the house (POLTERGEIST). Shot three: the soundtrack features opera singing a la THE OMEN (the difference is the Damien masterpiece used a full orchestra to back up the singers, while this one uses a Casio Keyboard on “orchestra” setting). Do you have a nice buzz going? We’re not done, the game will continue soon. By the way, if you are below the age of 21, you can drink soda or something (don’t want to get in trouble with the parents).
About thirty minutes into the movie, we hear Aubrey scream. Her parents run up the stairs to find some sort of cat-like growling monster (GHOSTBUSTERS – shot four) in her room. Only this monster is translucent except for its red eyes (PREDATOR – shot five). By now I knew this film was gold. Why, you ask? Because I think they used a Commodore 64 to design this monster. I was going to say an Atari, but that would be too flattering to this monster – after all, Pitfall was the bomb. The special effects in HOUSE OF THE DAMNED are beyond poor, and this adds to the overall fun of the movie.
Heightening the fun factor is a local Irish spiritual guru who comes to investigate (POLTERGEIST once again – shot six, I hope you ate something). How do we know this old man is spiritual? Because he wears a Chinese shirt, that’s how. If you wear Asian clothes you must be spiritual. When the guru arrives in the house he realizes quickly that it is haunted big time- and shows his connection with these spirits by opening his eyes wide and groaning for about five solid minutes. Through this groaning, he figures out that a little girl was imprisoned and murdered in this house – and the corpse is still buried behind a wall in the basement (THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM – shot seven). They decide to hold a séance to find out more (THE OTHERS – shot eight), which ends with the spiritual guru somehow being be-headed by a stone gargoyle that doesn’t move. I still haven’t figured that one out, but I certainly appreciated the blood.
So at this point in the story, the couple has found a corpse buried in the house, watches a cat-monster try to attack their daughter, and witnesses the beheading of a spiritual guru with a Chinese shirt. Following these strange occurrences, they do what anyone would do: stay, of course! Never mind that the walls start to bleed (AMITYVILLE HORROR – shot nine). Trust me; you’ll be glad they stayed, because it gets only better from here.
The haunted spirits begin to infect the wife, Maura (played by ex-Baywatch babe Alexandra Paul). She dreams that her husband is cheating on her. These dreams lead to more than one scene of gratuitous and stretched-out sex between the husband and a hot local Irish-woman. And when I say gratuitous and stretched-out I mean: wonderful and thoroughly essential to the plot. These dreams start to drive Maura mad, and soon enough, trapped in this house, she turns evil and plots to murder her family (THE SHINING again – shot ten). This releases the flood gates to for some ridiculously over-the-top acting that features wild screaming, bug-eyed crazy looks, and an “evil voice” -meaning she speaks an octave lower.
People, do whatever you can to track down HOUSE OF THE DAMNED. It rips off every haunted house film imaginable, while throwing in generous helpings of bad acting, gore, gratuitous sex, and truly the worst special effects you can imagine (I didn’t even tell you about the spinning vortex). By the time the film throws in its last “boo” moment before credits, you’ll be laughing so hard you won’t notice. That is, if you’re still sober.
Rating: *** (out of four)
BUY HOUSE OF THE DAMNED on VHS
Pitfall Harry rules!!! Who else could swing from vines, land on crocodile heads and jump over quicksand! The best part about Pitfall was it could be played backward, which was more entertaining. Maybe if this movie were told backward, ala Memento, it would have been better!
Posted by: B Squared | August 01, 2005 at 01:59 PM
Thank you this article I hope you have an enjoyable day.I can see a great improvement in your writing, I’ll love to get in touch. Keep up the good work! Your writing is very inspirational for someone who is new to this type of stuff.http://www.griffeyshoesred.com/
Posted by: Griffeys Shoes | May 17, 2011 at 02:57 AM
I just wanted to comment your blog and say that I really enjoyed reading your blog post here. I can see a great improvement in your writing, I’ll love to get in touch. Keep up the good work! Your writing is very inspirational for someone who is new to this type of stuff.http://www.radiishoessale.com/
Posted by: Radii Shoes | May 17, 2011 at 03:03 AM