Horror House on Highway Five

Um...wow. I don't think anything could have possibly prepared me for this one...it couldn't have been any weirder if the actors walked backwards and talked like Popeye.

A confounding amateur freak-out which sails straight through the roof of conventional exposition, HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY FIVE involves two maniac brothers and their female captive, some kids stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down van, and a vicious killer creeping about in a rubber Nixon mask. Additionally, the film get an injection of undefined supernatural hooey, with the matters at hand awkwardly italicized by inappropriate avant-gard musical sweeps.

When a movie turns out this strange, it becomes rather difficult to criticize. Regardless of your conclusive feelings toward HORROR HOUSE, there's no denying that it's an experience entirely unlike any other. When you consider lengths to which many recognized "great" directors have gone in hopes of achieving this very distinction, the oddly wavering characteristics of this film must be called into question.

...well...sort of.

4/10

The DVD box reads "A Cult Classic Never Before Released On DVD!" Two questions, a cult classic on what planet and why was it ever released to begin with??

The catch phrase for the movie is "see it or die!!!" I saw it and wanted to die!!! I can accept some inadequacies in any horror movie because all horror movies can't be "Night of the Living Dead" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Unfortunately "Horror House on Highway 5" is way beyond acceptable.

This tragic piece of celluloid has no plot, actors with little talent, terrible dialogue, no continuity and the worst soundtrack I've ever heard.

The only redeeming quality in this movie is Susan Leslie who played Louise "the scientist" Susan is the only, and I mean only, reason I rated this movie a three! Without her, it would be a zero!

This forgotten 80s slasher is truly one that has to be seen to be believed. Its got a killer in a Richard Nixon mask, a couple of Nazi brothers, a girl getting her chest ironed (!), invisible whipping weapons (think Phantasm but on a much lower budget), a teleporting disemboweled cat, brain-eating maggots, surf-rock music, and more! None of it makes any sense and by no means is it a good movie but its so bizarre you just cant take your eyes off it! Love the scene where a chick throws herself into a glass coffee table...to get away from the killer! The DVD is the quality of a VHS transfer but, in this case, it actually kinda helps the film by giving it the grainy picture effect that works well for a film of this "so bad it's almost good" caliber.

Some college kids head out to the woods to do some research on the V-2 rocket developed by the Nazis during WWII and run afoul of a couple of cultists and a killer running around wearing a Richard Nixon mask, who may or may not be a resurrected Nazi. This is just such an odd film that I was transfixed by it. I can't tell if the film's quirkiness is intentional or a result of ineptitude (most likely a combination of both). Director Richard Casey will definitely confuse the viewer as one scene will be poorly staged and the next surprisingly clever (the final shot from inside the van as it pulls away from the final girl on a highway is very well done). The soundtrack is filled with popular rock songs, which I'm sure they had absolutely no license to use. Some re-releases remove them entirely. Ronald Reagan gets credited as the killer Richard Nixon. Haha.

It is hard to describe what my feeling on this movie is. To put it simply, this might be one of the most bizarre horror films of the 1980's. Were the makers of the film on drugs when they filmed and wrote the script? Did they even have a script at that? Was this all filmed in one night? Who knows? All I know is that as bad as this flick is it is hard to pull your face away from it.

I will try my hardest to sum up what the movie is about so bear with me. Basically, some college kids have to do some research on a Nazi named Bartholomew who was making some wild experiments many years ago. Supposedly he is dead and all that is left are his 2 grown children, who grew up to be Nazi's, also. Apparently, the experiments were being performed at a house off of highway 5 (where ever highway 5 is). One of the girl college students is kidnapped by the Nazi brothers and is brought to the house to perform a human sacrifice for some odd reason. The other college kids go to the house, get creeped out, and camp out somewhere else. While all this is going on we have a guy in a Richard Nixon mask played by a guy listed in the cast as Ronald Reagon running around killing everybody.

The incoherent storyline is only one of the many things that make this one of the most bizarre movies out there. Misplaced music ranging from trippy 60's music to an organ is what fills the movie up. The whole atmosphere of it all is down right weird and hypnotic. Of course, the acting is bad and the filming is even worse. But, I guess that is one of the things that gives this movie its charm. And what is the deal with having a guy in the cast go by the name of the Ronald Reagon?

I don't really have a lot to say about this movie. It is just one of those flicks that need to be seen to be believed. Check it out. 6/10