La casa delle anime erranti

A young group of geologists can't get out of a village due to a landslide and seek accommodations at a creepy, isolated hotel. Of course it is haunted and soon the ghosts of the killer owners and their victims (including a random Buddhist monk) start picking them off. It is going to be a sad day when I run out of '80s Italian horrors to watch. This has all the elements I love (atmospheric main location, gruesome killings, funny dialogue). In fact, one of the opening lines let me know I was in for a treat right away. After waking from a nightmare, Carla tells her boyfriend and he replies, "The doctors had a perfectly reasonable explanation. They said you had psychic ability." Another great exchange:

"Mary's disappeared!"

"Disappeared?"

"Yeah, and we could start looking for her if you didn't ask so many questions."

This made for cable horror film tells the story of a handful of young geologists, who are unlucky enough to be forced to stay at a hotel in the middle of nowhere. What they don't know is that the hotel has been abandoned for twenty years, because the owner of the hotel had killed his family and all the guests two decades ago. Strange things begin to happen, and suddenly murders are committed...

Umberto Lenzi has done a decent film here, although his other made for cable feature that year, "La Casa dei Sortilegi", is superior (both films were made for a four-part-TV-series called Houses of Doom. The other two were Lucio Fulci's "La Casa nel Tempo" and "La Dolce Casa degli Orrori" - all films were made in 1989 by the way). There is one bizarre murder scene where a kid gets decapitated by a washing machine (sic!). All in all standard fare, but quite entertaining stuff.

A group of young geologists find the main road blocked and book into a tatty looking hotel. There are no other guest, just the hotel manager, a very glum looking chap who does not utter a single word. Soon ghostly apparitions and decapitations ruin the guests' stay! This was Umberto Lenzi's second entry of the made for Italian TV series "House of Doom" (1989). I would rate it second best after Lucio Fulci's "House of Clocks", the other two movies, one by each director, are pretty poor. This is hardly classic Italian horror. We get the usual bad dubbing and some laughable script, one woman mumbling about Donald Trump after being locked in a freezer with some corpses! There is some good gore, including a decapitation by washing machine, however the camera cuts away for other deaths. Kevin is played by American actor Joseph Alan Johnson who appeared in several 1980's slasher movies, I thought that he looked familiar. The music sounds familiar too, sounds like the soundtrack to "Demons" (1985). If you like Italian horror then Lost Souls is reasonable viewing.

It's the old dark house plot again with added gore. Foolish young people take shelter in in old house or in this case, hotel and all hell then breaks loose. Not one of the most original stories in the field of horror films and sadly there is nothing really new in this made for TV movie. Other than the only known case of death by washing machine that is!

Made in 1989 but looks even more dated than that, the jocks and bimbos in the American splatter films were pretty air-headed but they were always far worse and incredibly stupid in the European ones. Anyone with an ounce of sense would see what a 'con-damned' building this house was and run for the hills. These just wait around aimlessly to be picked off by the forces of evil.

The sound dubbing isn't very good either and somewhat annoying as none of the voices seem to be in tune with the actors. And the small child while I guess, is supposed to be cute is just a major pain in the backside. But then again, none of the cast are sympathetic and you don't really care what happens to them.

Thus it rattles onto a dull finale and disappointment. Like a lot of Spanish and Italian films in this genre, the horror effects happen for no rhyme or reason, just to try to elicit a scare. There has to be some bounds of credibility and logic in even the most dopey plots.

Only for really die hard fans of the director.

Can it get any worser to understand it all? i mean, just look at the release of Ghosthouse (1988). It had an good script but was also called La Casa 3 clocking in on Evil Dead's success. Then came Ghosthouse 2 but that's a title used for a few different flicks and wasn't directed by Lenzi and had nothing to do with the original one. Here I just watched what they call in Germany Ghosthouse 3. But it has again nothing to do with Ghosthouse, in fact it should be called La Casa 5 but it doesn't. It's just one of the fourth part of the series "Le case maledette" (Doomed Houses) also including La dolce casa degli orrori, La casa nel tempo and La casa del sortilegio.

Again, as so many Italian flicks this is pure trash and just look at how it was made, it looked much older, it even looks as a seventies release. The effects were again dull and laughable. But this time a few killings did happen all as decapitations. The most notorious one the one with the laundry machine. Nevertheless it's again low on every part. It's so strange that a man like Lenzi could make such supernatural trash. The ghosts are just real people that are standing there with wooden performances and thats' what most of the acting is. Some did make it into the Italian scene.

Okay, it was a television release but still from someone who made Cannibal Ferox this is trash.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5