The Dead Come Home

While released by gross out distributor Troma, The House on Tombstone Hill (or Dead Dudes in the House in some circles) is pretty different from most of their regular output. It's still low budget and there's a nice helping of gore, but it's a bit more mature and ambitious than expected.

There's a bit more emphasis on creepy atmosphere and mood than on slashing or gore effects. When the gore does show up, it packs a punch, but it's refreshing to see a Troma film that embraces more than just blood, boobs, and silly gross out humor to tell a story.

Speaking of the story, it's your usual "people want to fix up a haunted house and creepy things happen" saga, but these ghosts seem like they might still be alive, including one creepy homicidal granny.

The effects work are better than usual and some moments reminded me a bit of Sam Rami's Evil Dead films. It's definitely a movie worth checking out.

The title of the film shouldn't influence you at the time of deciding whether to rent it or not. DEAD DUDES IN THE HOUSE is a good slasher zombie flick, better than the average. It's one of those horror films where you can't say what's gonna happen even when the movie it's about to end. I watched this film for the first time back in 1993 on cable, those where the days where the slasher era was dead. This movie tried to bring to life a more than dead genre.

What it seemed to be an average fun weekend for eight friends turned into a carnage that could be described as one of the most freaky and horrible massacres ever seen. These dumb dudes buy and old house to have a place to chill out, have pre-marital sex, and drink some beers. While fixing and cleaning the old house one of these dumb teens smashes the headstone in the backyard just to immedieately awaken the owner of the house from the dead.

The owner is named Abigail, a woman who murdered her husband back in the 1940's (as seen in a flashback). Now 100 year old or so Abigail is very pi**ed off and she will murder these teens one by one with no mercy.

After getting murdered, these dudes return as zombies just to wander in the house and increment the horror atmosphere. To make things worse, the house seems to have own life and it won't let these dudes escape; in fact the house will provide help to Abigail in order to kill them. You have to watch to believe. Ms. Abigail Leatherby seems to be wiser, and stronger than these dudes. Who will survive from this weird carnage? What's going on with the dead daughter of the owner? Follow the dudes and the dead dudes in this slasher film that starts with a terrible murder and ends a la Evil Dead.

DEAD DUDES IN THE HOUSE provies lots of slasher fun! it's your average slasher to watch on midnight. The movie contains gruesome murders, creepy settings, a creepy atmosphere, and an effective score. As a hard core horror fan I plenty recommend this movie to any horror fan. The body count is ok and maybe unexpected. I wonder why there wasn't a sequel to this hidden gem.

6.5/10

Like one of the others who commented, I saw this movie years ago on Cinemax (I believe it played back to back with Meet the Applegates)... For the longest time, I have been trying to figure out what it was, because I could not remember the name, only pieces of the plot. Strangely enough, I am not a horror fan, but I just *had* to know what movie this was. And through searching here, I finally found it. Also being titled "The House on Tombstone Hill" really threw me... I could have found it years ago if I knew they were one in the same. And now that it is coming to video to own, I just have to pick up a copy. I just remember that this movie was such a cheesy riot (but I honestly can't recall whether it was purposely bad or not). I can't wait to see it again, a lot of questions will be answered.

Way back when Troma would release anything (okay...they've ALWAYS released anything), this film came out of their vault o'horror with an interesting premise: dudes renovate haunted house, some get possessed by evil spirits, end up trying to kill each other. ...as if you couldn't guess the plot from the title.

Yep, "Dead Dudes in the House" is about as low budget as possible and makes no apologies for what it is. In fact, it revels in its origins and goes for the shock, gross-out and gore from frame one to frame last. Gotta appreciate that; not all movies have that kind of conviction.

But in the end, it all is just kind of left there on the screen. Having seen multitudes of similar films in my day, I hadn't seen anything here that I hadn't before. What I did appreciate, however, was the fact that a bunch of guys with cameras, little money and an idea got something filmed, produce and distributed.

Bless 'em. And bless Troma, too.

Six stars for the "Dudes", plus a star extra for making it this far. Way to go, blood!

During my sophomore year of college, my roommate and I rented just about every video from the shlock-horror section of Oasis Video in Salt Lake City. (I hope Oasis is still there). Run back to back with movies like Reanimator, Basket Case, The Evil Dead trilogy and Dead Alive, (plus ALL the Troma we could eat) I thought Dead Dudes was remarkably good. Low budget, funny, kinda creepy, and the best kind of ending:unhappy! I recommend viewing this with a 976-EVIL for maximum horror movie pleasure.