Say what you want about Vipco, but they released a great box with four of Lenzi’s and Fulci’s TV-movies and also a single release of the criminally underrated corny masterpiece Ghosthouse. The latter one also known as La Casa 3 (Evil Dead 3), but has very little with that franchise to do except some supernatural stuff happening in a house. Ghosthouse is a very fine release, sharp picture and uncut and it’s one of my favourite Lenzi-movies from the crazy, wacky eighties. Not that original, but who cares!
The wonderfully stiff couple Martha and Paul (played with the enthusiasm of a couple of wax dolls by Laura Wendel and Greg Scott) picks up a mysterious message at their radio…thingie (I’m to lazy to check the English expression for what they’re doing). Paul suspects it’s a murder and together they manage to find the source… and meet another couple with radio-thingie as a hobby. It’s their voices they heard (and recorded), but they’re still alive! They’re based at a strange old house, and soon something kills them off one by one!
Ah, the story. My sincere apologies, but even if I love the film the story is so damn boring to write down like this. I hope you understand me. Like I wrote above, Ghosthouse is hardly an original story by any means, but it has a very nice thick atmosphere which reminds me of EC Comics and more or less all eighties horror movies mixed together. The best of everything! Just with a TV-budget and very stiff acting. But still, we have the always wonderful Donal O’Brien, playing one of those creepy fucks he always was cast as during the golden years of his career. He alone is worth the time watching the movie.
What’s excellent with Ghosthouse is that it’s a TV-movie but Lenzi hasn’t forgot what he came there for, and gives us a couple of well-lit kill-scenes, some very creative camera work and a disgusting scene when a character falls through the floor and nearly drowns in something that looks like boiling… semen? I have no idea what it’s supposed to be, but it’s a very effective and gross sequence. Overall, the interiors (maybe shot in Italy? A lot of the furniture, walls and other details is very familiar) have charming cozy TV-feeling over them and the wonderful exteriors is of course the same house Fulci shot House by the Cemetery at, Ellis Estate House - 709 Country Way, Scituate, Massachusetts, USA (according to the IMDB).
Ghosthouse as blood and simple gore (Lenzi’s trademark, the axe in the back of the head is there to!) cheese and a fun score by Claudio Simonetti. And hell, that ending – is it only me that feels like it was ripped off by the Final Destination-series?
1 comment:
Like you said, it doesn't sound very a original but it still seems like it'll be a cool a watch!
And although, you English isn't your first language, you're awesome at it!
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