House On Haunted Hill Review

‘House on Haunted Hill’ (1959) is a gem of a film. I’ve watched it for years now and I have a great time doing so every time. The house is spooky, the jumps scary, and the shrieks ear piercing, just the way they should be!

Vincent Price does an outstanding job as Frederick Loren, an eccentric millionaire who devises a plan; he invites five seemingly random people to an old house he rents for a party in the hopes that the “haunted house” will do the deed of killing off his greedy wife for him. However, his wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) has no intention of going quietly and has dastardly plans of her own. Who will survive this night is anyone’s guess.

Frederick’s incentive is simple: $50,000 is to be split amongst any of the guests who remain in the house the entire evening and live to see the morning. It’s a simple enough premise if it wasn’t complicated by floating ghosts, falling chandeliers, vats of acid, walking skeletons, and hanging guests!

I love this movie because it doesn’t take itself serious. It is standard haunted house fare, a big house, isolated and locked down with only one entrance that can’t be opened until dawn of the next morning. Two creepy caretakers, lots of rooms with bars on the windows, and plenty of hidden passages make finding a way out impossible and give the nefarious plenty of opportunities to conduct their dastardly deeds. Cheesy gags that are purposely meant to frighten the guests but are not real in the context of the story add to the mischievousness.

Throw in the psycho guest who believes in ghost and babbles constantly about the evil history of the house (the owner of the house in this story), the Doctor that seems to be present in every haunted house story, the alpha male hero of the group, and the easily frightened woman with a scream that can shatter glass, and you’re in for a great time even if it is fairly predictable.

There are enough of these type films that you have to really want to enjoy a film, and not critique it, to really understand why this film stands above most others. It is by no means a masterpiece of cinema but the actors all do great jobs portraying characters needed to make a story such as this come together. The house doesn’t detract, and the frights given by the gags you see make up for the shortage of any real ghostly frights elsewhere; this is one of the few haunted house movies I’ve seen where the house itself doesn’t deliver any frights.

‘House on Haunted Hill’ was directed by William Castle who was known for his in-theatre gimmicks. This movie was labeled as being filmed in “Emergo”, and during one scene where a skeleton walks towards Frederick’s wife, an actual skeleton hung on a wire would fly out from the side of the screen and float over the audience. Unfortunately the gimmick was short lived, once word got out about it the skeleton became the target of soda cups, sling shots and anything else that could be thrown at it. I would have loved to have seen it myself.

‘House on Haunted Hill’ is a typical Vincent Price classic and deservedly so. Go into it expecting such and you’re in for a great time.

The movie is embedded below for your viewing.

Horror Express Review

I had a lot of fun Watching 1973′s Horror Express for the first time. Not only does it take place on a train, of which steam engine locomotives are a fascination of mine, but with such wonderful performances by Christopher Lee and especially Telly Savalas, how can you go wrong? Add in Peter Cushing and Silvia Tortosa, and you’re in for a good time.

In the opening sequence, a 2 million year old fossil believed to be the “missing link” between ape and man is found preserved in ice in Manchuria. Prof. Saxton (Lee), an anthropologist, is taking the specimen home by Trans-Siberian Railway for research. However, before the specimen can even be loaded on board, one person is already found dead on the docks. Shortly after the train leaves the station, the crate that used to contain the specimen is found with a dead baggage handler inside and the specimen missing entirely.

Dr. Wells (Cushing), a scientific colleague of Saxton, has an interest in the specimen himself and soon they find themselves working together to solve the mystery of the deaths. Unable to find the cause however, and as the death toll mounts, the train is finally stopped and Captain Kazan (Savalas) comes on board determined to find the cause of the deaths himself. It is unfortunate that Savalas doesn’t appear on screen until the last 28 minutes of film time, I feel his contribution to the film could have been much greater as his performance is simply superb and by far the most memorable of any here.

There is very little blood and gore in this film, although there is an eyeball being poked by a needle, a few short excerpt scenes from an autopsy, as well as a brain or two and whitened eyes. Still, nothing too over the top, with the story remaining the main focus throughout the film, as opposed to the effects. Given that your autopsy room is a baggage car, you already know not to expect too much anyway.

Horror Express was filmed in Madrid with a budget of $300,000 and originally contained little or no sound and voices. Dubbing was later added, with original actors Lee, Cushing, and Savalas providing their voices for the English release. The train scenes were made using leftover miniature and interior train sets from 1972′s Pancho Villa (also with Savalas as the leading role). It was also the first film Cushing made after the death of his wife, Helen, earlier that year.

This is a a must-watch film for any fan of the era and genre, and casual or modern horror fans should still give this a try and see if they like it. After all, this is a public domain film and we’ve included the full version of the Horror Express below so that you can watch it yourself for free.

The Keep Review

The 1997 film The Keep directed by Michael Mann, based on the novel of the same name by F. Paul Wilson, has always been a memorable movie for me. Everything from the movie poster, the Romanian countryside and village, to the visuals within the keep itself has stuck with me for years. Add in such actors as Jürgen Prochnow, Scott Glenn and Ian McKellen, as well as a hard to come by soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and you have something that definitely stands out as a unique experience.

The movie focuses on a Romanian keep just outside a small village that is newly occupied by the Germans in World War II, led by Captain Klaus Woemann, awesomely played by Jürgen Prochnow (Jürgen’s next role is as Duke Leto Atreides in David Lynch’s Dune, my favorite role of his),probably the best character in the entire film; his speeches alone are worth seeing. The keep is not a fortress, but a prison and imprisons a demon, who through negligence on the part of two German soldiers, is released. Each day new German soldiers are killed and the villagers are blamed for it, and even executed, in an attempt to stop the killings. When later a mysterious message is found written on a wall, a Jewish historian, currently in a death camp, is brought in to decipher it in a further attempt to stop the killings.

The demon however deceives the historian, played by Ian McKellen, after saving his daughter from an attack by two German soldiers, and convinces the historian to help him, to take the talisman that keeps him imprisoned within the walls of the keep, outside it and into the mountains where it is to be hidden, thereby forever freeing him from his prison.

A stranger, played by Scott Glenn, is the only one who can stop the demon, he senses the release and sets off for the keep to stop the demon from ever being allowed to step outside. The ending confrontation has two endings, one in the theatrical release, and one longer sequence only seen in the extended edition released on LaserDisc. Sadly, this movie has yet to see a DVD release.

The soundtrack is a unique one for this type of movie which is part gothic horror, part WWII, and the melodious tracks heard very obviously in certain scenes, seem both appropriate and somewhat inappropriate at the same time, part of the Mann envisioning. Only 3 of the 16 tracks on the soundtrack actually appear in the film.

The effects are on par for the time, very similar to those you would find in other sci-fi and space movies such as Return Of The Jedi and Krull, which were released earlier the same year.

It is unfortunate this movie has not seen its full directors cut, at over 3 hours in length, ever released, so a reading of the book is helpful to fill in some gaps. An excellent fan site can be found at
http://www.the-keep.ath.cx/default_en.htm
.

Session 9 Review

The name Session 9 refers to 9 tape recorded sessions of Mary Hobbes, a patient at the abandoned Danvers State Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts, who suffered from dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personalities.

The film starts with the Hazmat Elimination Company winning the bid for the job of removing all the asbestos from this abandoned hospital. Five guys, Phil, Gordon, Mike, Hank and Jeff set out to complete it in only one week to gain a $10,000 bonus, which is a make or break deal for the owner, Phil, who will have to close up shop if they don’t succeed.

Filmed at the actual abandoned Danvers State Hospital location, the building and location bring most of the initial tension throughout the first half. Most of the props and elements used throughout the film existed at the Bonner Medical Building there on the campus before shooting began. Even the soundtrack by Climax Golden Twins does many wonders to add suspense when the story has yet to evolve enough to bring its own.

As work continues in the hospital, Mike stumbles across a box marked “Evidence”. Sparking his curiosity, he pulls out the tapes and starts listening to them on an old reel-to-reel system. They are for former patient number 444, Mary Hobbes, and as Mike listens he hears stories told by Mary, and others by two of her personalities, a young and innocent Princess, and an overly protective Billy. Both personalities mention someone named Simon, but they do not like talking about him.

Quirks exists in all the workers, from severe nyctophobia in Jeff, Phil smoking marijuana after losing his girlfriend to Hank, and Hank himself filled with dreams of quitting his job and running a casino. Gordon opens up privately to Phil that he, in a fit of rage, hit his wife and he is very depressed by this, currently staying in a motel. Several times Gordon makes phone calls to his wife asking for forgiveness.

The suspense kicks up when Hank comes across a stash of Morgan Dollars within a hole in a hall, apparently from a cremation that took place. He returns later that evening to steal them and is ambushed by an unseen assailant. With Hanks disappearance, Gordon begins to suspect Phil is behind it as he had wanted to fire Hank earlier, basically calling him unreliable, as well as the fact that Hank stole his girlfriend and loves to tease Phil about it; however Phil is adamant he ran off to Miami to a casino.

Work continues for some time and later Jeff sees Hank in an upper floor, facing a wall with possible blood on his hands. He runs down to let everyone know causing everyone to separate out in hopes of finding him, since naturally he is not where Jeff saw him and now they are determined to find him.

The ending took me two viewings to understand, it was not readily apparent at first since it relies on flashbacks and your ability to put together a chain of events in proper order to make sense of it all.

For a movie with no gore at all, relying on atmosphere mostly, it makes for a great example of horror but does have to rely heavily on soundtrack and scenery to accomplish it, as the acting does not always get you there. There are no startles, no real jump scenes to speak of. If you are not focused on being immersed into the film, or the volumes too low it may not do a lot towards scaring you. I dare say if you are watching the film while doing household chores, it may appear to be a movie about nothing but asbestos work, so do not do that, as you would be losing all of this films purpose. Phil (David Caruso) and Mike (Stephen Gavedon) do the best acting jobs but all were believable in their roles. This film was directed by Brad Anderson, who can also be seen on Showtime’s Masters of Horror series.

Ending Spoilers

The last personality of Mary, Simon, is a protective (or destructive, take your pick) entity within the building itself. Just as Mary killed her brother and her family, it has taken up residence inside Gordon. One of the flashbacks is Gordon, not calling his wife to ask for forgiveness for hitting her, but killing her. He proceeds to hunt each member of the crew down one at a time while they are all out looking for Hank, phasing in and out of his psychosis, one minute thinking Phil has killed Hank, the next killing Phil himself over Hank’s body he previously killed. The film ends with Simon, on the 9th taped session of Mary, answering the question of where he lives with the answer “I live in the weak and wounded, Doc.”