Ghosts of Hanley House

A home-grown $1.49 shocker that doesn't appear to have been released anywhere until it finally debuted on home video over 30 years after it was filmed. It's slow, repetitious and crudely assembled but it does at least make an honest effort to tell an actual story. It seems to have been partly inspired by THE HAUNTING (1963) and many parts have an authentically creepy dreamlike feel similar to that of CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962). Much of the original soundtrack seems to have been lost, as many stretches are scored with grating jazz music and the sound effects were obviously added much later. Foley work doesn't get any worse than this, with absurdly loud "ambient" noise thrown in and at least one very strange, loud gasp that doesn't seem to come from any particular character added to the more common print. Most of the (black and white) film is tinted a cold blue, creating an appropriate deathly mood, although a few sequences are dressed up with bright red solarized video effects for no good reason. On a bet, five people spend the night in the haunted mansion of the title. They experience the usual phenomena, including slamming doors, mysterious thumping sounds and isolated patches of freezing cold. Clock hands spin around crazily, a framed painting of a dead woman keeps moving, and an ominous old locked box is found. The haunting evidently causes continuity errors too, like when one girl's necklace keeps knotting and unknotting itself from shot to shot. One of the group is a medium (natch) who sets up an impromptu seance to try to sort things out. A big problem is that none of the main characters have any discernable personalities. There are two completely bland young men, two completely bland young women and one oddly out-of-place middle-aged guy with big ears and a suit and tie. The acting is near catatonic and most of the dialogue reads like it was written for children, but in spite of everything that goes wrong GHOSTS OF HANLEY HOUSE is spooky in a low-key kind of way. It's true that nothing is really happening through most of it, but it's good to see a haunted house story in which the characters are sensible enough to decide to leave when they start to fear for their safety. The plot actually makes sense and tells a good little ghost story, which is another nice bonus. Just don't expect action, stunts, character development or special effects. The crippling technical ineptitude makes it unlikely that GHOSTS OF HANLEY HOUSE will ever become anyone's favorite, but it's off-the-wall and eerie enough to be worth a look.

As others have said, this film deals with people trying to stay overnight in a house that has a reputation of being extremely haunted. While obviously made on a shoestring budget with unknown actors, this film has does some good points. The house itself is a neat setting with loads of strange pieces of artwork and gothic furniture. The storyline has echoes of other ghost tales, but the plot twists towards the end add some surprises to the story. The actors are not Academy Award contenders, but do an adequate job with the limited roles given to them; the young woman who plays Sheila probably gives the best performance and is quite pretty as well. However, there are also a lot of faults with this film, as the sound is particularly bad in places, there are weird sidelines to the plot that are incomprehensible, and the story as a whole seems implausible from start to finish. Having said that, this may appeal to some viewers who enjoy ghost stories or like to watch obscure films from the past.

At its best, 'The Ghosts of Hanley House' has the feel of a poor man's 'The Haunting.' At its worst, it has the feel of the forgettable Ferlin Huskey (old-time country singer for those who don't know) vehicle, 'Hillbillies in a Haunted House.' Part of this feeling was due to the guy who took the bet to stay overnight in the house (don't know the actor's name since even IMDb doesn't know who played whom!) sounds JUST like old Ferlin … which is to say a Hillbilly country singer stuck in a haunted house!

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. As others have said, the production values, at least as far as sound goes, are terrible! It sounds like a very, very early "talkie" from about 1929! I think the ghost was standing outside the house, holding the microphone in many scenes! The camera work, though, is quite good. The film almost seems to have a blue tint, as in silent film days…except of course the handful of somewhat overdone scenes of a man's silhouette standing outside the house with the picture in a gaudy blood-red tint. The house itself is wonderful. I suspect the availability of the house may have led to the movie. I can almost see Louise Sherrill visiting the house and going 'Dang! I've GOT to make a haunted house movie about this place!'

Sometimes Ms. Sherrill gets a little heavy-handed on making sure we understand what we're supposed to see. We hear and see cars trying to start for 30 seconds to show that the cars won't start. We have at least two looks out the front door, each 20-30 seconds of panning every inch of terrain just to show that no one was REALLY knocking on the front door. A few other things that don't add up would be the painting of Mrs. Hanley looking NOTHING like the flashback image of her, the haunted house scenes at the opening bearing little or no relation to the crime that had been committed there, etc.

Don't expect 'The Haunting' or 'The Shining.' If you like B horror, though, this one should be well worth viewing.

There was potential in Ghosts of Hanley House. Some parts are truly creepy just because of the atmosphere and eerie tone of the film. It reminds me a little bit of a modern found footage film, except actually quite spooky until ...

Our cast is awakened at 1 or 2 am by ghostly banging and then all decided to get fully dressed including necklaces, hair clips and neck ties before holding a seance. I know people used to dress up in public but give me a break. Even in the 60s people had tee shirts or could sit upright without a suit coat or hair accessories. Then they get lost in what is obviously Griffith Park in broad daylight meant to look "dark" because the film is black and white and they play crickets chirping in the background.

This film is very interesting from a sociological angle or as an historical artifact and it certainly has some atmosphere but you'll be disappointed if you pay attention too closely. I highly recommend playing this in the background at a Halloween party or watching it late at night in the dark alone. It's too ridiculous otherwise.

Note: The current IMBD plot description "Five people are spending the night in a haunted house. Things get dicey when some of them start turning up decapitated" is only half-right--the second sentence is very inaccurate and misleading.

This is a game low-budget regional attempt to do a traditional "haunted house challenge" story a la "The Haunting," et al. But it's undone not so much by the low budget as unimaginative direction and lack of atmosphere. (Admittedly, the soft, probably TV-copied prints this movie can be seen in probably don't help.) You know the handling will be somewhat clunky right off with some poor matching of shots including day-for-night ones. Otherwise the film makes a semi-intelligent decision to keep things relatively dark (hiding production shortcomings) and avoid overt violence, but there just isn't much sense of style or idiosyncrasy to the direction to convey any real sense of threat. Too many of the "scares" are in the form of crude sound effects obviously dubbed in later, and which the adequate (for this kind of movie) actors seldom react to at all. There's so little attempt to ratchet up suspense that when "The End" comes, it's one of those times you think "Wait--that was IT?" Not because things didn't happen, but because their presentation is so flat there's no sense of having reached a story's climax. Anyway, you've certainly seen worse, and this is notable for not being particularly lurid or cheesy in an era when most low-budget horror was exactly that. But it just doesn't really come to life. Compare it to another low-budget film from just a few years later like "Let's Scare Jessica to Death," and you can see how an ability to convey an unsettled atmosphere makes all the difference.