Fright House

It's bad.

Okay so Al Lewis is the best part about this but he isn't in much and while some of the monster effects are nice enough I still can't recommend watching this, even if you like schlocky horror movies.

The only reason I finished it was because I was sick and delirious after I had caught some illness.

Well, I give up on this one. I tried to like it, I really did. The film has some potential: Two story feature, one about a satanic coven and the other about a demonic teacher who never gets old, sucking the life out of unfortunate coeds. Or something like that. It is low budget non-Hollywood "regional horror" that went directly to home video and remained there, and perhaps the kindest thing one can say about it is that it's incredibly hard to find, and long. You get your money's worth out of FRIGHT HOUSE as far as runtime: It's two hours more or less on the mark, one hour per story. Problem is that it feels longer.

Part One concerns a snarky detective (actor/producer Paul Borghese) who stumbles upon a coven of witches looking to free their master from hell or something like that. Some bared breasts and Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis, being a sport) supply the only genuine interest. Meanwhile odd things are happening back at the local college creephouse involving human sacrifices, staged suicide jokes, and lots of bad 80's haircuts. Borghese is simply awful, the production utterly uninspired and whatever shocks or gore there is are easily missed if you get up & go to the bathroom at the wrong moment. The problem is that the consumption of beer is about the only way to make it through this and the frequent use of plumbing a by-product of such an undertaking. Too bad: If Grandpa Munster can't even liven up a movie you know it is perhaps time for a re-write.

Part Two is set at what appears to be Long Island's SUNY at Old Westbury, where cast star member Duane Jones (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, GANJA & HESS, and appearing here in his last completed film before going off to barricade himself inside of the great abandoned farm house in the sky) taught acting. Perhaps this was a class assignment that he agreed to participate in, and Jones acts circles around the unknown faces in the cast just sitting up in a bed shaking off sleep. His three or four scenes are the best parts of the production aside from the Demonic Toilet sequence, which actually did generate a belly laugh: A young coed doffs her clothes, putters about a dormitory bathroom, showers and then lotions up on the bed. So far so good. Her obnoxiously sweatered boyfriend startles her in a traditional horror movie manner, they engage in offscreen fornication, and are awakened by one of those giant sucking sounds Ross Perot used to catterwall about, and sure enough various small inexpensive set props start flying across the room and into the gaping maw of the Toilet from Hell. Eventually the sucking grows stronger, the couple are apparently sucked right off their beds and into the Demonic Toilet (we only hear it happen), which flushes obscenely at the end of the sequence. Oh, the humanity.

The rest of the movie is a SLOG of regional horror filmed entirely on Long Island using stock actors & actresses who again were probably appearing in this as some sort of classroom affiliation -- There is even a title card that indicates one sequence is filed at "Abandon estate" and then "Abandon estate, 75 years later", reinforcing the suspicion that this was executed by acting students rather than seasoned veterans of the craft. How the young ladies were egged into removing their clothing makes one curious in the academic standards at Old Westbury, but I digress. The film was written, produced and directed by one Len Anthony, who's only main credit to fame is for Executive Producer for 1985's DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD, a documentary on the history of -- yes -- George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD zombie films. The presence of Mr. Jones and the DOCUMENT connection reek of some sort of nepotism or familial advantage blessed upon Mr. Anthony, who's one other film credit (1987's campus based horror thriller VAMPIRES, which also features an appearance by Duane Jones) suggests that perhaps he died young or gave this up to open his own Wendy's franchise outlet. In any event he was not permitted to direct, produce or write any other horror movies after FRIGHT HOUSE, which to me might be the best thing one could say about it. This was his last movie.

3/10 ... Some of the breasts are actually quite nice.

Well, no amount of warning is going to keep a bad movie fan from watching this movie but it doesn't hurt to try. Fright House consists of two movies tacked tighter to make one and, while they both offer awful acting, dialogue, camera work, and audio, the second one manages to blow the first one out of the water in terms of shear crapulence and bad writing. The first film is your standard blood cult sacrifice rama-lama-ding-dong that has been done a million times before only better and features a performance by Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) that makes his performance in Reel Horror look good (and that's no joke). It has a fair amount of nudity but it doesn't help. The second one is an unwatchable, convoluted mess about some college professor who has a machine for eternal youth but you'd barely know it. They were obviously low on footage with actual actors in it so they waste time with shots of statues and tarot cards repeatedly throughout, with dialogue playing in the background that should be attached to scenes with actual characters in order for the film to make sense. The audio mix is beyond crap but, to its credit, the soundtrack music is decent--the one nice thing I can say about this mess. This is low budget trash at its worst and the end result is a film that never should have been inflicted on the public. I love bad movies but this one is a rough ride to be sure.

My review was written in November 1989 after watching the program on Studio Entertainment video cassette.

This compilation of two occult horor films on one video (each feature tuncated to about an hour) delivers one goodie and one stiff for genre fans.

First segment, "Fright House", toplines Al Lewis, restarateur of "The Munsters" tv show fame. Film's title is a pun on frat house, and pic is set at a mansion inherited by a college fraternity. Lewis is a police captain whose detective (Paul Borgese) is investigating suspicious suicides on campus, including that of Borgese's brother.

Upshot is that college psychologist (lovely Jennifer Delora) turns out to be hypnotizing the kids, in service of her satanic master.

This feature is an okay mixture of sexploitation and gore, though its climax is hurt by the editing.

Second half of the doubleheader is a mess, simply because the source feature film, "Abadon", was itself a confusin mishmash: in complete form it was releaed under the title "Vampires". The late Duane Jones toplines as an obsessed figure trying to settle a 75-year-old score with Abadon (Jackie James), in a story set at a Connecticut art school.

Retaining the original's awkward voice-over exposition and closeups of tarot cards substituting for scenes that were never shot, the shortened "Abadon" is incomprehensible. Only link between the two films is that Kit Jones, who plays Borgese's blonde girlfriend in "Fright House", has a small role as young Abadon in second pic's flashbacks.

After the first story of this two part horror flick, the narrator proclaims "No, it's not over yet". But you'll wish it was.

Tale number one is a Satanic snoozefest that makes very little sense. Paul Borghese plays Detective Les Morane who investigates a series of supposed suicides (including that of his brother Carl) that take place on the grounds of the abandoned Vincent's mansion. I can't go into much more detail than that, because I was totally lost not long after it began thanks to the sloppy direction, terrible writing and crap acting. Look out for Al 'Grandpa Munster' Lewis slumming it, lots of mullets, the bizarre moment where a guy suddenly does some standup comedy, the frat boys who play a prank that ends with them singing Michael Jackson's Bad, semi-naked Devil worshippers, and vampire zombies (all of that makes this sound like a lot of fun, but trust me, it isn't).

The second story, Abadon, is set in an art school run by a mysterious woman who uses a strange machine to suck the positive energy from her students and thereby extend her own life. It stars Night of the Living Dead's Duane Jones, who probably wishes he was elsewhere, and features a nonsensical scene where a girl and her boyfriend are sucked into a toilet. Again, don't let that fool you into thinking this is going to be enjoyably daft trash: the writing and direction by Len Anthony is as bad, if not worse than in the first chapter, and the result is an incredibly tedious test of one's patience.