House of the Damned

I watched this thing of a movie last night (18 Dec '02) while flicking through the channels I got to channel "5" and the opening titles had just begun with the nice landscapes but shoddy pan shots. But as there was nothing else on I decided to give it ago.

For some reason as the movie got increasingly flawed and to be quite honest annoying. I still watched the whole damn thing!

I guess it had it's moments for like an F-Movie! But I like realism in film and this was just not realistic even for a supernatural film. You don't need a huge budget to make truely eerie movies...SO NO EXCUSES! Sometimes I wonder what the actors...Or there agents were thinking!

Surely the weirdest thing to be based in Ireland!!! It's the sort of film when you expect Warwick Davis to turn up chanting "I'm the Leprechaun!" Oh c'mon! What was that invisible cat thingy for!

anyway....NOT MY THING

1.5/10

This was a letdown in many ways. The location filming in Ireland, though quite beautiful at times, cannot save this uninspired flick. Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul, as the married couple trying to get their marriage back on track and who inherit a haunted mansion, just aren't interesting characters. Paul, towards the end of the film, becomes incredibly annoying and one wishes she would just close her mouth and shut up, as it seems she is screaming as if it has just become an Olympic event! Other problems with this film are odd segments that have nothing to do with the core of the film, such as the opening sequence with two cleaning women and the woman in a bed with a severed hand climbing over her writhing, naked body. Although the woman is quite adequate doing this it does nothing storywise. One is left thinking the production team needed to pad out a short running time and just tossed in some padding and a bit of T and A. The CGI effects are cartoonish as well and the fiery finale rivals co-executive producer Roger Corman's much earlier and far superior film The Fall Of The House Of Usher in all its ineffective cheapness. Any attempt at true tension and suspense, and as a result chills, are thrown out the window in this low budget bust. If you like images of Ireland you might find something here but you would do better renting or buying a travelogue. Skip this unless you are undiscriminating and think plot is secondary. Rent another low budget ghost story(if you can find it) titled The Woman In Black and see how good and scary a movie can be. This was a wasted opportunity.

All these one star reviews and claims of one of the worst movies ever are not accurate. You can go to the horror category at Netflix and Amazon Prime and 99% of those movies are far worse than this. I am not sure what people were expecting. It does borrow a little from poltergeist but so what? Movies borrow from each other all the time. Put Vincent Price with this same script and that alone would raise it two stars. That is how important acting is with low budget movies like Corman's. 4 to 5 stars is about right for this.

I saw this Film one midnight and I can say that it worse than other horror film about a Haunted House.Alexandra Paul is not one of the best actress but she can do the role better,The little girl get worse this is a example about a Bad actress,she has not got future in the great world of films. SENTENCE FOR HOUSE OF THE DAMNED:BAD

Given that Roger Corman attached his name to this production, I had high hopes for this film. Corman directed many memorable low budget horror flicks in the 1960's. I particularly enjoyed his adaptations of Poe's stories such as `The House Of Usher,' and `The Pit And Pendulum' and `The Raven' which starred the late great Vincent Price. These films had solid acting, atmosphere, suspense, strong characterization, intriguing plot development and delivered some chilling moments. Sadly, `House Of The Damned,' for the most part, sacrifices these qualities in lieu of cheesy low budget special effects, gratuitous nudity and mindless gore topped with cliche fast edits and camera angles.

`House Of The Damned' starts off interestingly with some beautiful location shots in Ireland, but it's straight downhill from here. Unfortunately, instead of spending some time building atmosphere, creating characters we might care about, or building suspense - the director opts to begin running up the body count. After a brief introduction to the lead characters, a young couple and their daughter, the audience spends the balance of the film being bounced from one `spooky' event to another which, in this film, substitutes for coherent plot development. The lead characters are so ill conceived and are so badly acted - the audience doesn't care what happens to them. To make matters worse, the `spooky' events are either utterly cliché or unconvincing due to low tech - low budget special effects. The soundtrack has been lifted from `The Omen.' The plot, what little there is, borrows heavily from `Poltergeist' and `The Legend Of Hell House,' but lacks any of the qualities which made these films convincing.

If you interested in seeing well done haunted house flicks, I recommend you check out classics like `The Haunting (1963),' `The Innocents (1961) or look into Corman's early American International films and pass on `House Of The Damned' unless you're masochistic or mindless.

3 ½ out of 10.

Rob Rheubottom

Wpg, MB. Canada