La maison du cauchemar

A radio recording prompts a couple to investigate an old house, they join up with a group of teens and make the silly decision to explore the house where the spirit of a little girl reside.

Directed by Umberto Lenzi under the pseudonym of Humphry Hubert and released as La casa 3 (to cash in on The Evil Dead) it's arguably one of Lenzi's most conventional films. Unfortunately it's hampered by a clunky script, some disjointed scenes and gobbledygook elements synonymous with Italian horror exploitation films.

In the golden age of practical effects Lenzi offers a stabbing with shears, a little hammer carnage and a character being cut in half. As the group are killed off one by one there's also maggot infested knife wielding (a pre Wes Craven Scream-like cloaked) skeleton, taps spurting blood, severed heads, exploding light bulbs and jars, a Clown Doll (reminiscent of the one in Poltergeist) and also an obligatory 80s shock ending. With a possessed camper van there's all the ingredients you'd expect as the mystery unfolds and they track down the origin of the evil.

Plodding pacing aside there's some good nostalgia value in Ghost House right down to the CB radios. The house and its location are creepy (it also appears in Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery) and the ghost of the girl gives a few chills.

While it's no comparable Fulci cult classic, Lenzi offers some gory kills but what will stay under your skin long after the credits is the genuinely disturbing, eerie, repetitive verse.

From director Umberto Lenzi (using the riotous Americanized pseudonym of Humphrey Humbert) comes this dopey, low grade, but engagingly dumb haunted house flick.

Things begin with a prologue of young Henrietta (Kristen Fougerousse) being chastised by her father for butchering the family cat, and then being locked in the cellar. Soon after the parents are brutally murdered. Flash forward 21 years, and HAM radio operator Paul (Greg Scott) picks up radio signals of what sounds like people being terrorized. He traces the signals to an isolated manor, meeting up with other young adults. Soon these unfortunate souls are set upon by the demonic forces residing within the walls.

A banal script (by Cinthia McGavin), truly silly dialogue (by Sheila Goldberg), lame attempts at horror, and some delicious moments of gory violence combine in this enjoyably bad movie. The acting is likewise lousy from most everybody concerned, although it's nice, as it always is, to see the great character actor Donald O'Brien (a.k.a. Dr. Butcher, M.D.) as a hilariously unsubtle, menacing axe-wielding caretaker.

The young actors *are* attractive, in any event. Lara Wendel of Dario Argento's "Tenebre" is top billed as she plays Paul's girlfriend Martha. The adult performers don't fare much better, but there are some great character faces among them: William J. Devany as a detective, Alain Smith as Henrietta's father, Robert Champagne as a mortician.

The music, by Piero Montanari, is very bad, but amusingly so, while cinematographer Franco Delli Colli works to give the movie a decent look. At least "La Casa 3" ("La Casa 1" and "La Casa 2" being the Italian titles for the first two "Evil Dead" movies) gets much mileage out of a creepy clown doll, much like "Poltergeist" did six years previous.

Filmed in the same house as Lucio Fulci's "The House by the Cemetery".

Six out of 10.

Umberto Lenzi's GHOSTHOUSE opens with the gruesome, otherworldly murders of a man and his wife. This, after the man had discovered that the family cat was killed by his creepy daughter, Henrietta (Kristen Fougerousse).

Twenty years later, Paul (Greg Rhodes) and Martha (Lara Wendel) wind up in the very same house, after receiving a strange radio message. Now abandoned, Paul and Martha soon encounter others who happen to be camping on the house's grounds. Let the senseless slaughter begin.

Lenzi pulls out all the stops in this movie, unleashing a crazed hillbilly, an unconvincing head in a washing machine, exploding glass jars / bottles, a shaky camper, a devil dog, an indoor feather-storm, an acid / slime bubble bath, the grim reaper, and a goggle-eyed Henrietta and her clown doll! Said clown is a total hoot, and a better actor than any human in this film!

Preposterous and absolutely non-frightening, this is a rare treat for the true schlock connoisseur! The mindless dialogue is perfectly suited to the mannequin-like characters, who simply wander through the house until something "bad" happens. Just wait until you see the funeral home murder scene, complete with a paper towel-lined coffin! Pure platinum! Watch this immediately!

P.S.- Watch the aforementioned hillbilly, and marvel at his vast array of murder implements. He uses an ax, a meat cleaver, a pitchfork, a hammer, and a sickle!...

How can you not like this movie?! Not only was it good, but it was also good! Sure the acting isn't the best and the dubbing is a little off, but that's not what made the movie what it was anyway! The nursery song is soooo creepy! And the little girl, freaks me out every time. The beginning is the best though...

Ghosthouse is a chilling haunted house tale with twists and turns that eventually lead up to confusion and unanswered questions. However, the film when it is not incoherent, is actually very enjoyable. It has many effective scare scenes and a twisted musical hymn, that will send chills down your spine for sure. So, in short, a relatively above average haunted house tale, rather good compared to late 80's horror, but an amateurish cast and a plot that tends to jump around emphatically, almost sinks the film. Almost. Worth a look.