Post by Canetoad on Sept 15, 2007 3:36:24 GMT -5
A TIDE of dross has passed through my DVD player in recent months, but this was a pleasant surprise. Not great, but far, far better than expected.
I confess to having not watched the preceding film (which apparently is a loose remake of the 1959 Vincent Price classic House on Haunted Hill), and expected this to be straight to DVD drivel.
The premise is fairly formulaic sequel fare: start not far from where the last one left off, and return to the scene of the horror.
To cut a long story short, in the original a bunch of people agree to spend a night in a haunted house, are brutally murdered one by one, and nobody believes the sole survivor’s claims that it was ghosts what dunnit.
Shift to this film, and that sole survivor commits suicide (or was she murdered?) but leaves clues for her sister in the form of a diary of a mad doctor at a mental asylum (the said house).
The diary also makes reference to a strange and occult statuette, which after some at times flimsy plot leaps sees a motley group of treasure hunters (and the sister) enter the old asylum.
Now the fun starts. We’re talking seriously nasty, homicidal ghosts here, not the sort that ruffle the curtains and rattle the odd chain.
These are ghosts that can rip a man apart so completely what’s left looks like it’s been swept up of an abattoir floor (great scene that one!).
And complicating matters is the equally tense relationships between our victims trapped in the house.
The house is actually the star of the show – a dark, malevolent presence, seemingly with a mind of its own.
Helping matters is a tight script and fast paced directing which sees the film hurtle along from one shock to the next, with some genuinely creepy, suspenseful sequences. Lashings of blood and gore and a bit of gratuitous lesbian ghost action don’t hurt either.
And the ghost of the said mad doctor of the asylum is a lovely homage to Vincent Price, right down to the pencil moustache.
Not high art by any stretch of the imagination (then nor is anything I review here), but highly recommended for a night in.
THREE STARS.