Horror House (a.k.a The Haunted House Of Horror) (1969) So much fun, this one......on multiple levels......
Not the movie itself, really.......which is a mish-mash aborted atrocity. The film's the rubble left over from the clash of its artistically-minded director with the British arm of U.S. Exploitation House of Beach Parties and Corman-ized Poe, American-International Pictures.
But you know how much BQ loves sifting through the rubble of 60's and 70's movies.......and this one's a treasure trove......
AIP no doubt wanted an ultra-hip horror movie steeped in the last gasps of Swingin' England.......girls in crotch-level mini-skirts and knee-high plastic go-go boots, guys with shaggy, pseudo-Beatles haircuts and flowery shirts......all of 'em fruggin' their lives away at groooovy parties.
Into this end-of-an-era mess, AIP plops down its worn out Beach Party-goer, Frankie Avalon, at the end of
his era, already looking pissed off, impatient and well on his way to wandering through the rest of the century as the answer to trivia questions.
Frankie's the nominal leader of the pack here, a bunch of ultra-mod Brit boys 'n girls who decide to go ghost-hunting through a supposedly haunted house. Heh,heh, heh.......like nobody can guess how
that's gonna work out........
After one of the Brit-boys gets properly carved up (with the make-up staff dumping a bucket of red paint on him....), Frankie talks the rest of them into shutting the hell up about it until they figure out who's the Mad Killer among them,,,,,,
Like nobody can guess how
that's gonna work out........
The filmmaking's virtually non-existent and the acting's beneath contempt.......but oh those 1960's fashions, on full display..........especially on blonder-than-blonde Jill Haworth, the iron-pixie survivor of bloated Otto Preminger epics, now reduced to cheapjack Brit horror.....
When the film at last lurches to its conclusion, it becomes a harbinger of both the unsettled, inconclusive endings so prevalent throughout the 70's and the onslaught of the Italian 'Giallo' genre.......
I'll give it this much.......that final. climactic kill is guaranteed to leave you simultaneously gasping or bursting into hysterical laughter. Whoever among this film's battling collaborators came up with this idea.......bravo!
For that moment alone (and Jill in a mini-skirt), BQ slices "Horror House" a break with
2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)......or as Austin Powers might put it, "Yeaaahhhh Baby...."
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