House of the Living Dead

As I watched this one I felt something was odd about it. While the cast seemed to all be English, the terrain and deep blue sky seemed somewhat foreign, so I was interested to learn afterwards that this is a South African production. It's a pretty rare thing to find a horror movie from that country, and this was probably the most interesting thing about this one. It's another costume horror, of which there were many back at the time this was released. Set in the 19th century, it centres on a young woman who travels to the plantation home of her fiancé, whose family has a grim history. The mother tries to encourage her to leave, while the other brother is an unseen lunatic in the attic. As is so often the way, a series of murders start happening. But are they a result of voodoo? Is it mad science at work? Or is this the work of...a horse!? All, is eventually revealed.

The combination of a hokey mad scientist plot-line with traditional voodoo is slightly unusual. As is the way that animals are sometimes presented, with a major character being what can only be described as a so-called devil horse which the locals actually believe could be roaming around in the dead of night committing all the killings. The science bit is covered by the not entirely interesting idea of human soul transferal. So the story has quite a few disparate ideas kicking about and there is undoubtedly some potential in the set-up but the presentation is often quite meandering and uneventful. But it's overall actually not bad really, as there is some atmosphere generated in some of the night scenes depicting strange goings on and there is a quite well executed chase scene involving a hooded villain too. The South African setting adds something new as well which definitely elevates the material by itself. As I say, it doesn't always maximise its ideas and it is a bit messy but it does also have a lively ending to round things off. All things considered, despite a few faults, this one is definitely better than its reputation would suggest.

The title of this film is very misleading,because there are no zombies here.This South African horror deals with science and magic.The script is actually decent,but the film is really boring and dull,and there's no gore at all.To be fair,there are two or three suspenseful scenes,and the ending is quite exciting-this is enough for me to classify "House of the Living Dead" as a decent horror film,so I'll give it 5 out of 10.

I got this film in a twelve pack of films that are zombie themed. This one should not have been included as there is nothing about this film that is zombie oriented. It is more mystery, but that is not very true either as it is not very difficult to see where this film is going if one has seen more than a couple of horror films during their lifetime. It was somewhat interesting at first though as I was wondering what was going to be happening as I still held out hope there would be zombies or something within the film. Not so late in the film, though, it became apparently clear how it would end so I spent a good portion of the film continually looking at the clock counter on the DVD player hoping it would hurry up and finish. Suffice to say, it was worth one look so I could properly review, but not a film I would ever care to pop in the player again during my lifetime.

The story has a plantation in Africa experiencing some problems. It is occupied by a mother and her two sons. One of the sons seems to be experimenting on animals while the other tries to keep the plantation together as a couple of people end up dead. This brother also has a fiancé coming in from London and his mother does not approve at all. More strange things happens as the film races to its somewhat bizarre, but thoroughly predictable ending.

The movie was just dull, as I said it started out interestingly enough as a man works on a monkey, but then there are just a lot of dead scenes that really add nothing to the plot. As the movie progresses it becomes less and less interesting as it is so obvious what is going on so all you are waiting for at this point is the ending to pop up. Thankfully, it did finally come on screen and I was more than happy to eject it and put it away. That being said, it is not terrible as the acting is decent, just to dull and predictable a story for my tastes.

On a Victorian-era plantation in South Africa, the cursed Brattling family endures yet more misfortune. In spite of the warnings of Lady Brattling, Sir Michael (Mark Burns), welcomes his fiancee, Mary (Shirley anne Field), to visit the estate. Meanwhile, Sir Michael's insane brother appears to carry out bizarre experiments in his laboratory, when he's not playing spooky songs on the organ, or creeping about the place.

Several deaths, both animal and human, ensue.

The wildly misnamed, HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD plays like a costume drama / murder mystery with horror elements. Most of this is in the form of mad science and occult shenanigans. The plot is intriguing, and the ending is completely bonkers...

It starts out really good, with a lot of elements and characters laid out to build suspense and great atmosphere, but by halfway through it narrows itself down to characters seriously wondering if an escaped stallion is behind the murders. Yes, a horse. And it tries to achieve a feel of all Hell breaking loose at the end with some psychedelic lights and crazy acting which both miss the mark. Worth seeing once, but I consider it to be to period-piece Hammer horror films what Space Mutiny was to Star Wars.

Oh, and in a dinner scene about halfway through, our heroine wears an outfit that somehow achieves an insupportable cleavage-to-breast ratio. Science geeks may want to study this scene just to see if they can figure out what laws of physics her corset's breaking. Really. Seriously.

Recently bought this in the Nightmare Worlds DVD 50-pack. Not sure if it's gotten its own release.