Christina's House

The teenager Christina (Allison Lange), her younger brother Bobby (Lorne Stewart), and their father James Tarling (John Savage) moves to a rented house in Avedon, a small town in Washington, to be close to Christina's mother Joanne (Chilton Crane), who is interned in an asylum. The house is being repaired by Howie Rhodes (Brad Rowe) and Christina has a boy friend, the bad boy Eddy Duncan (Brendan Fehr). While in the house, Christina hears noises and has a permanent feeling that another person lives there, but her father believes it is the structure being settled. When two teenagers vanishes, the weird Sheriff Mark Sklar (Jerry Wasserman) visits the Tarling family, since the last place the teenagers were seen alive was nearby their home. When a dead body is found in a river close to the house, the Sheriff investigates the place, trying to find the guilty for the crime.

"Christina's House" is low paced, low budget but it is not a bad horror movie. The screenplay plays with very few characters, maybe due to the limitation of the budget, the viewer knows that one of them is the serial killer, but there is no clue along the story indicating who the criminal is. Although quite exaggerated when the mystery is disclosed, I found the twist acceptable and I liked the open end. The character of the Sheriff is too much weird, but maybe it was intentional to include him as a possible suspect. With regard to the highlighted goof, the killer sucked the blood on the hammer, therefore the blood has not disappeared from the hammer as mentioned in IMDb. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa da Morte" ("The House of the Death")

A pretty good B horror movie. It was suspenseful, the plot was a little above mediocrity, but not great. Not much for gore hounds I'm afraid, though there was some blood near the end. The acting was very good, but then, I usually watch stuff like Polonia Bros. and other Microbudget rubbish.

What we have here is a pretty teenage girl played by Allison Lange, who has moved with her father and little brother into an old house. Some creepy things start to happening in this house and it slowly builds up to a climactic ending. Very much in the style of some of the 70s horror, such as 'Amittyville Horror.' This isn't as good as that, because the plot is very predictable after 30 years of such movies, but it is worth watching.

The one thing that stands out is the father and his relationship with Christina. I haven't seen any mention of this in the reviews I have read, but the father seems to have an unnatural love for his daughter, and she seems to know it, but represses it. When she was washing the dishes at one point, he told her something like, 'you look good tonight Christina.' She clearly felt awkward and changed the subject.

All in all, I give this slightly above average suspense horror a 6 out of 10. But Allison Lange should be commended for her acting and I would say deserves to be in some better pictures in the future.

Christina Tarling (Allison Lange) keeps hearing odd sounds from the attic above her room. Her terminally-grumpy dad (John Savage) tells her that the house is just "settling". This, while someone is murdering young women in the neighborhood and dumping the bodies on Christina's property.

The question is: Who could the killer be?

Could it be the hormonally-charged boyfriend (Brendan Fehr)? The ultra-friendly handyman (Brad Rowe)? The pushy, downright creepy sheriff (Jerry Wasserman)? Dad?

CHRISTINA'S HOUSE is a decent enough mystery-horror film. Though not overly exciting, unless you count Christina's lovely bubble bath, it does have a few chills and a wham-bang, violent finale with a nice twist...

CHRISTINA'S HOUSE.

OK here's another from my WM "Two for $11.00" bin collection DVD. For a B movie, this one was actually pretty good. Admittingly, mostly because of the hot young girl w/ the huge cans. Everything she wore was very revealing; obviously done on purpose to keep your attention (and btw, it worked). The acting was, again for a B movie, on par. The story was relatively believable, albeit misleading from the cover pic and plot synopsis on the back (its not about a haunted house), and the editing was again, fair. Pros: hot girls with revealing clothes throughout the ENTIRE movie (definant +), a couple of brief bare boobie shots (again from our main character), decent story, and characters that you found yourself loving, OK, er more like liking, and hating. Cons: Overly predictable (once you realize its not a haunted house). Crappy/unrealistic props (why does the deputy drive a 1988 Crown Vic with the old andy griffith dual light pods up top? How cheap is that Sheriffs Dept?), and its fair share of boring down time. Anyway, if you like B movies, go to your local wally world and pick up this B gem for 5.50....its definitely worth that. Thumbs up.

This isn't a great horror movie, but it does have something to offer, for those not expecting a classic.

It's not too violent to begin with. As a matter of fact, the first violent scene looks more like an explanation of how masters such as the Three Stooges made their brand of slapstick work without anyone actually getting hurt. It's just that it's not very convincing. I thought maybe the scene was supposed to be funny and that maybe the entire movie would be that way. But there's not that much comedy here, although there are a few laughs.

Violence does happen from time to time but it's not too bad. Toward the end, the movie does get quite bloody, including dead bodies. I found some of the final scenes quite disturbing and wondered how I would get over what I just saw.

Allison Lange is quite pretty with long blonde hair and wears a lot of revealing outfits. That's the primary appeal of the movie for me. She shows talent from time to time but isn't quite consistent. When it really counts, she comes through, and she shows a lot of courage and determination when things get really bad, after playing the screaming damsel in distress for a while.

Those who like mechanical stuff such as Rube Goldberg contraptions likely will be impressed at some of what happens toward the end. Actually, I've seen better in other movies, but it's interesting.

This doesn't really mean anything, but three of the movie's characters look familiar to me. I thought Eddy was Adam Samberg. The sheriff, when wearing sunglasses, reminded me of Richard Belzer's Detective Munch. And Christina's mom's nurse looked like Kara on "Supergirl", with the glasses.

Not a classic, but it fits the formula.