The House Where Evil Dwells

This could have been interesting – a Japan-set haunted house story from the viewpoint of a newly-installed American family – but falls flat due to an over-simplified treatment and the unsuitability of both cast and director.

The film suffers from the same problem I often encounter with the popular modern renaissance of such native fare, i.e. the fact that the spirits demonstrate themselves to be evil for no real reason other than that they're expected to! Besides, it doesn't deliver much in the scares department – a giant crab attack is merely silly – as, generally, the ghosts inhabit a specific character and cause him or her to act in a totally uncharacteristic way, such as Susan George seducing diplomat/friend-of-the-family Doug McClure and Edward Albert force-feeding his daughter a bowl of soup!

At one point, an old monk turns up at the house to warn Albert of the danger if they remain there – eventually, he's called upon to exorcise the premises. However, history is bound to repeat itself and tragedy is the only outcome of the tense situation duly created – leading to a violent yet unintentionally funny climax in which Albert and McClure, possessed by the spirits of their Japanese predecessors, engage in an impromptu karate duel to the death! At the end of the day, this emerges an innocuous time-waster – tolerable at just 88 minutes but, in no way, essential viewing.

This movie seems to still get no respect, so let me chip in and say give it a look. The movie has some real atmosphere which really matters in a ghost story. A big part of this is the sound which features constant bug noises whenever at the house and the other aspect of the effective sound is a very good score by Ken Thorne. It's a scary score, I'd say Thorne's best and the sound design of the film uses it well and also uses Japanese language screams and grunts effectively. The scares are here and if a few times the scare is followed by something that gets a bit silly, you have to say it gets you.

The film is also part travelogue of Japan and it does this well too. The ghosts are fairly authentic to Japanese culture--including the face in the soup ghost that others have thought silly. What's interesting about the ghosts in this film, that is pretty unique, is that we the audience see the ghosts but for the most part the characters in the film don't. I can't think of another ghost story that has done this. The movie moves pretty quickly though in the middle it loses a bit of steam and it's also in the middle that the ghosts get a bit silly, but most of this can be forgiven with the uncompromising and memorable ending toping it all off. Also there is nudity and sexual elements and the female Japanese ghost is genuinely creepy as is the dialog free opening of the film.

Must be said that the existing DVD of the film has a soft looking 16 by 9 image, if you watch the full frame version the image is sharper and you see more image top and bottom, so the widescreen is just a slightly sloppy blow up of the same video master. The trailer to the film also 16 by 9 looks much better than the movie! But it's still worth watching.

Director Connor does one of his best jobs here, it's too bad that in the middle part of the film he has the ghosts run around in scooby Doo fashion, but it's a relatively short lapse in his effective film. George bugs her eyes out one too many times but otherwise gives a good performance as do the 2 male leads. The daughter character is fairly poorly written and acted but that's a smallish part of the film.

It's a unique ghost story it's got exploitation elements to keep you going as well. Hey at least it makes sense, which is more than you can say for THE GRUDGE. Those 2 films pretty much stand alone, well along with THE MANSTER for genre films made by Westerners in Japan.

Chock full of 70's B-television staples, House Where Evil Dwells is the perfect movie to watch while getting drunk with a bunch of friends. It's hard to beat ghosts who must open and close doors to get in and out of the house they're haunting (silly Susan George opens the door after a monk exorcises the house and lets them all back in!) and giant attacking crabs muttering in Japanese. And not to be missed is the last scene in which out-of-shape Doug McClure is possessed by the ghost of a Samurai and awkwardly kicks and chops at MOW stud Edward Albert (oh, Trampas!) High camp that is sure to please.

I last saw The House Where Evil Dwells on VHS, unaware that the beginning and the ending had suffered from a total of 34 seconds of cuts, removing the film's bloody decapitations and dismemberment (thanks BBFC!). No wonder I found it so underwhelming. Having just watched the film uncut, I can verify that the gory scenes that bookend the film are easily the highlights, although the sight of Susan George naked and a crab attack are also fairly memorable for different reasons.

The excellent opening scene, set in the middle of the 19th century, sees a samurai returning home to find his wife in the arms of another man. Sword in hand, the wronged warrior bursts into the house and slaughters the lovers, before committing hara-kiri (ritual suicide).

Cut to the present day: American magazine writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert), his wife Laura (Susan George, looking as lovely as always) and their daughter Amy (Amy Barrett) arrive in Japan, where friend Alex Curtis (Doug McClure) has arranged a house for them to live in while Ted writes an article. No prizes for guessing that it's the same house where the samurai went kill crazy with his katana, that the ghosts of all three dead people still haunt the building, or that history is about to repeat itself.

With superimposed spooks in bad make-up orchestrating Rentaghost-style supernatural occurrences, much of The House Where Evil Dwells is unmitigated cheeze, moderately entertaining for its sheer silliness. Director Kevin Connor gave us the excellent Amicus anthology From Beyond the Grave (1974) and that classic of the macabre, Motel Hell (1980), but let's not forget that he also gave us those campy craptastic fantasy flicks The Land That Time Forgot , At The Earth's Core, and Warlords of Atlantis (also starring the mighty Doug McClure). The House Where Evil Dwells is more camp than classic.

Household objects move by themselves, the ghosts possess the living to make them behave uncharacteristically, Laura sleeps with Alex (giving George another opportunity to shed her clothes), Amy is attacked by crabs, including two oversized clockwork crustaceans that can climb trees, and Ted witnesses an incident involving a samurai sword that would have had me saying 'Sayonara' and hopping on the next bullet train outta there.

Connor wraps thing up as expected, with Laura telling Ted about her infidelity, which leads to a wonderfully daft finale in which Albert and McClure do bad martial arts, before Ted lops off his old friend's noggin, stabs Laura with his sword, and kills himself.

I won't pretend this isn't a bad movie. Luckily it's often so bad it's entertaining. First off, the ghosts are ridiculous. A man catches his wife cheating and kills her and her lover violently. He then takes his own life. Later after they become ghosts they must have decided to make up and be friends.The three of them haunt the house where the murders take place. Mostly they just stand around shouting in Japanees. Giant mumbleing crabs will make you laugh out loud and must be seen!!! A terrible fight scene climax tops it all off. There is some suprising gore in this film, but it;s not really scary. The scariest thing about this movie is the lead man mustache which seems to spread on forever.