El maniático

Yes, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE seems to be another lurid cinematic adaptation of a real-life serial killer's exploits. The first time I saw this film I said to myself "Now where have I heard about someone burning fetching young ladies to death in an asbestos insulated room before?" and the answer is Herman Mudgett, aka H.H. Holmes, Chicago's twisted "Torture Doctor" who murdered anywhere between 20 and 200 people in a self-designed townhouse on 63rd Street during the 1890s. Mudgett built a maze of false corridors, secret passageways, trap doors, sound proof and air proof killing rooms and dug vats for quicklime acid baths & a crematorium incinerator in the basement of his 3 story castle of horrors, complete with fake battlements and windows covered with sheets of steel. The most famous of which was an asbestos lined room with gas jets where he would confine victims and watch them being burnt to cinders for kicks.

It is perhaps from those basic elements that the brain trust responsible for DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE found their inspiration for a story about a steel mill worker who goes on a killing spree after his mother -- who cruelly abused him as a child -- drops dead in her sitting chair. Character actor Dan Grimaldi is very well cast as Donny Koehler, a mommy obsessed loser and budding psychopath still bearing the scars of his childhood trauma where mom attempted to "burn the evil out" of his soul by holding his bare arms over a lit gas stove, which of course created a Freudian fascination with fire, his relationship with women, his mistrust of authority figures and religion. It doesn't quite answer the question of how he became interested in disco music but what the hell, that was the fad of the time. These days he'd be obsessed with Britney Spears maybe, which IMHO would make for an even more frightening portrait of insanity.

Several things about this movie actually click and make it a rewarding ride for fans of 1980s era slasher horror, the first being the setting. This is one of the most bleak and dismal looking horror movies ever, set on Long Island during a cold, inhospitable looking February that is actually quite unique: Most slasher movies are set during the warmer months of the year to afford the cast to walk around half naked in the great outdoors. By contrast this film is set within dank, claustrophobic interiors, specifically the wonderfully creepy, empty and rapidly dilapidating house that Donny grew up in, which is photographed from an interesting vantage point to make it look all the more isolated from the rest of the world. There are no neighbors to overhear the screams of anguish from Donny's victims, who's complete lack of hope for rescue is probably more disturbing than their on screen fates.

Much ado is rightfully made about Donny's first murder of a full-breasted young florist he tricks into coming home with him after wrapping up a get well bouquet for his putrefying dead mother. She is knocked unconscious, stripped nude, hung by her wrists, doused with gasoline and lit on fire. The sequence is convincingly staged but again what struck me about the murder wasn't how graphic it was so much as that she has utterly no hope of salvation and is merely present in the story as someone to suffer horribly for the benefit of the camera. Then there is the scene in the men's shop where Donny is outfitted for a night on the town in a disco ensemble suit that would have made John Travolta envious. Others have questioned it's relevance to the story and my thought is that it depicts just how isolated Donny is from the world around him. And reflects the filmmakers' disdain for the whole disco era subculture.

Aside from the young florist no characters in this story are sympathetic, there are no good guys and even the local minister ends up a charred reminder of how the community failed Donny by turning a blind eye to his mother's cruelty. Next time you are waiting in line at the grocery store and some pathetic loser starts screaming at their misbehaving kid tell them to knock it off lest the young urchin someday grow up to buy an asbestos suit and flamethrower. Psychopathic mommy obsessed losers are a dime a dozen and you might just end up saving the life of a hot young florist with pert nipples. We need all of them we can get.

6/10

It doesnt get much more grim than Dont Go in the House folks. And I'm not just talking about Donny Kohler's choice in music "When we get home....when were alone" . There is something profoundly artistic about this film whether it be intentional or not. The bleakness and raw style,or lack of style in definetely not for everyone. here is no safe cutaways to humor,just gritty.realistic film.

Crackles,pops,film grain and all. DGINH runs a little long in the tooth but for me it just adds to the realism. Its interesting to hear that Tarantino backs this one up. One last thing,If you think this movie is a hack job and that no one came out of this ,you'd be wrong. Good ol' Donny Kohler(Dan Grimaldi) went on to fame in Law and Order and the Sopranos.

If you like down and dirty feel bad movies like Maniac or Nightmare, Don't Go in the House is more of the same. It's less gory and explicit, but the mean spiritedness and ick factor is still present throughout.

It's well made with a great central performance by Dan Grimaldi as the mother obsessed serial killer who likes to lure women back to his house, tie them up, and torch them with a flamethrower.

No !! I was never set on fire by my mother.

Back in 1981 (when I was 17) video recorders came on the market here in England and we teenagers got our grubby hands on loads of movies that were not just "adults only"; they were more violent/explicit than the cinema versions. The media quickly dubbed them "video nasties". I took out Don't Go In The House and found it (obviously horrific) but good 'trashy' entertainment. Sadly, for me, it was the 1st video ever to get tangled up in the VCR. My dad untangled it, watched part of it himself and that was the end of MY unsupervised video viewing :) It's not a very good film but certainly watchable and does, actually, give an insight into what motivates the crazy minority. 4/10

I'll never understand people who complain that a horror movie is too gruesome or horrifying. It's like a person saying he/she didn't like a comedy because it was too funny.

The negativity towards DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE is odd. Yes, there is ONE moment where it's particularly gruesome and lurid but I've seen mainstream movies (LETHAL WEAPON 2 or TOTAL RECALL) where the super violent action was more nauseating to me than an entire film like DGITH. I suspect that a lot it has to do with the fact that DGITH is a low budget movie, with unknowns and made by unknowns, and those suffering from an elitist complex will renege anything if it doesn't look a certain way or stand-up to their (prefab) expectations. The great thing about DGITH is that it doesn't gloss over the violence. The film is grim, dour and depressing, as it SHOULD be.

Another notch against DGITH is that the story follows the depressing actions of the killer, who's the only main character of the film. And like so many horror films with the main character being the killer himself, few people identify with (or what to identify with) the killer, and because of this knee-jerk reaction towards the way the film portrays the killer, many dismissed it without even trying to see it for what it is. Ironically, the film is dismissed for what it is (and isn't) as much as the character it portrays is dismissed in reality for who he is. Oddly enough, I thought his friend was more annoying than the killer himself.

DGITH is not the greatest movie ever made. But it does what it intended to do: it unsettles and it's grim and unpleasant, with its post-Vietnam war tone. There's NO black humour in the film, and a lot of films these days like to include touches of black comedy here and there in serial killer stories. But I'm glad there aren't any touches of black comedy in DGITH. Its straightforwardness is actually what sets it apart from most films of its kind.

The only big mistake in the film is the tacky "surprise" ending that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Otherwise, the film is solid and packs a mean punch. And I dig that disco music!

So, if you don't like your horror movies with a depressive tone. If you don't like movies that don't look splashy or stylized, then DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE is not a movie for you. Personally, I think it's light years better than the overrated MANIAC (1980).