Richard
Crenna and his wife (Joanna Pettet) buy a big-ass mansion that has a checkered
past dating all the way back to the Civil War with the intent of turning it
into a drug rehab clinic. She starts seeing
ghosts almost immediately during the walk-through, which is certainly something
I would’ve brought up to the realtor myself.
Anyway, they gather a crew of friends and colleagues together to spruce
the place up. Of course, Crenna stupidly
awakens the malevolent force that lurks in the basement and the newly unleashed
sinister specter traps them in the mansion and begins picking off his pals one
by one.
Since
this is a low budget ‘70s horror movie, of course, Andrew Prine is in it. If you’re watching a low budget ‘70s horror
movie and Andrew Prine is nowhere to be found, you almost feel like
you’ve got to send out a search party.
His mere presence in schlock like this is somewhat comforting, even if
the film itself is terrible.
The
real star is the mansion itself. Director Gus (The Sidehackers) Trikonis can’t keep the
story moving along, but he does manage to offer up a few creepy shots inside
the house. While the place is loaded
with dark and dreary atmosphere, it’s also loaded with a lot of dull dialogue scenes. Because of that, the movie stalls out in
between the attack scenes.
There’s
a larger cast than usual for this sort of thing, so the body count is higher
than you might expect. We get deaths by
fire (the pyrotechnic burn effects aren’t bad and include one burning stunt
that occurs in mid-air), electrocution, dog attack, and strangely enough,
quicksand. (You should have a word with
the landscaper about that.) The most
memorable moment though is the mishap with a power saw.
Most
of the spirit attacks are repetitive and mainly involve people getting thrown
around the room by the unseen evil. There’s
even one sequence that kind of plays like a warm-up to the invisible assault
scene in The Entity, although it’s not nearly as graphic (or effective). Unfortunately, you’re forced to accept a
bunch of scenes of wind machines working overtime and blowing in the cast’s
faces in lieu of actual scares. The sounds
of the ghost howling uncontrollably during these sequences get a bit grating
too.
Most
of this is watchable, but the ending feels like it came out of an entirely
different movie. Victor Buono’s extended
cameo is certainly an odd way to wrap things up. I’m not sure if it was a reshoot or what, but
the look and tone of it just doesn’t match anything that came before. His portrayal will probably remind you of
Peter Stormare in Constantine.
I
think my favorite character was the drunk caretaker who happens to be the first
victim. I especially liked how he
muttered exposition in between swigs from his flask. It’s not a great scene or anything, but it
was an amusing attempt to dole out necessary plot information in a novel way.
AKA: The Evil Below. AKA:
House of Evil. AKA: Cry Demon.
No comments:
Post a Comment