La maison assassinée

The movie takes place in the post-WWI France. The coming back of a young man, bring back dark secrets to the surface in the calm but nonetheless secretive little village he's born in. The secret he will discover will change his life forever.

This movie is not well-known even in its homeland and that's quite surprising because despite some minor flaws, it is a very interesting and full of suspense flick. The plot is quite interesting and you have to watch till the end to know the "full story".

Definitely a movie to check out, but you may have some troubles to find it.

The story of orphan Seraphime Monge returning to his home village after World War I to discover that the history of his family is soaked in blood and that in order to find redemption and break the spell he must revenge the death of his parents is quite interesting. It comes on the line of classic French novels like these of Alexandre Dumas, with 'justiciers' taking revenge over generations. Unfortunately the cinema making of this film is not up to the story, the director seems undecided whether to make a horror Edgar Alan Poe type of story or rather a romantic Alexandre Dumas epic. Despite some fair acting the movie never takes off, scenes that had a lot of dramatic potential are missed, and the usage of off-screen dialog spoils the whole first half of the film, just to be completely forgotten in the second one. I read on IMDb that the film was quire successful in the 80s, to be completely forgotten a few years later and unfortunately this is quite justified.

Intriguing and intense French noir crime and mystery drama based on the 1984 novel of the same name written by Pierre Magnan, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay.

The story is based on the life of an orphaned World War I soldier, who arrives in a small village where he will come across many unexpected revelations.

Simple but quality production, with great interpretations and solid direction. Excellent script, with firm hands from the author of the original book behind the good work.

I saw this movie at the theaters when I was 20 years old and at the time I loved it, it was etched in my memory. I never had the opportunity to watch it again, it may be that nowadays it looks in a different form, but I am absolutely sure that it is still a good film for anyone who wants to see good European cinema from the 80s.

Georges Lautner, like Edouard Molinaro and Gérard Oury, began his career in atmospheric noir movies, then turned to classic cult comedies. After a great number of these cult comedies, nearly at the end of his career, Lautner in 1988 directed this forgotten "la Maison assassinée", very atmospheric come back of a young soldier from WWI whose family has been slaughtered in a small mountain village. It's gripping from the very beginning and climax increases till the end. It's a dark stories full of hate and non stop murders and mystery. The casting is incredible from Patrick Bruel (yes) to an old woman (Maria Meriko) and the fabulous three young beauties of the village (divine Anne Brochet, sensual Ingrid Held, sweet Agnès Blanchot) and all the others. The entire movie is well done, there isn't any bad scene, and there are some exciting and successive strong murder sequences. Should be a real cult Lautner movie.

To be honest with you I don't like European movies that much. Everytime I sit down to watch one I have these preconceived ideas that the movie will be uninteresting and tedious. That was the also the case when I first started watching this movie, but soon I came to the conclusion that it was a good movie, and after that it just got better and better. The movie has some great acting, and most of all suspense. Especially the last 30-40 minutes were very thrilling. I must say I'm very surprised that this good movie has gotten so few votes. Is it a case of bad marketing?