Ghosthouse (1988)

Day of 33 Sobriety. 

It was Halloween, so I thought I had better watch a horror flick. Like I need an excuse. The film I chose for what was probably my first sober Halloween in decades was 1988’s Ghosthouse, directed by Umberto Lenzi, the very prolific Italian director of mostly crime and giallo movies, but who is also well known to many horror movie fans for his gruesome forays into the briefly popular cannibal subgenre (particularly 1981’s Cannibal Ferox).

Ghosthouse, however, is a supernatural horror film about some youngsters who stumble across a haunted house. I enjoyed the film, but I’ll say right off the bat: this is no masterpiece of cinema! In Italy this film was retitled La Casa 3 to promote it as a sequel to the first two Evil Dead movies (which were titled La Casa 1 and 2 in Italy). Apparently, this did enable the film to become a box office success, but I can only wonder what the Italian moviegoers thought in 1988 when they went to see it expecting something of the caliber of Evil Dead 2.

There are also subsequent entries in the La Casa pseudo-series (seven, according to Wikipedia), all of which seem to be arbitrary re-namings. For example, La Casa 6 is the American comedy-horror House 2, which I saw as a teenager, but don’t remember at all. I have also recently watched La Casa 4 (AKA Witchery, AKA Witchcraft), which is an Italian production with a similar tone to Ghosthouse, but which I found significantly superior. (It stars the dream-team of Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff for a start!)

The plot of Ghosthouse is unoriginal but not entirely terrible. The real problem for me was the dialogue and the acting. The actors essentially communicate in lines of plot exposition. To give an actual example, when the lead character, radio ham Paul Rogers (no, not the singer from Free) ventures into an abandoned (and haunted) house to unexpectedly find another young man there, he asks the guy, “What are you doing here?” Since neither of them have any right being there the usual reply might be something along the lines of “None of your business—what are you doing here?!” But no, the man replies (and this is verbatim), “Were here on vacation. My camper is parked out in the yard. I’m here with my brother and his girlfriend. Our sister, Tina is with us too. My Names Jim Dalon.” Well, thanks for explaining all that. And that’s a pretty typical example.

The film’s budget restraints are evident. There are some interesting practical effects, including few good gore effects, but a lot of the time the cheapness and corner cutting is all too evident. Like scenes where people vanish by stopping the camera, having them run off the set, and then starting the camera again—good trick photography in the 1930s, but in 1988?!

Having said all that, I enjoyed my 94 minutes with Ghosthouse, and I don’t mean in some kind of sniggering, ironic way either. I could just enjoy it as a straight-up horror film of its period, but then I am a sucker for such things. It had that certain uncompromising 80s horror flick atmosphere that I like. That atmosphere was helped a fair bit by the score, which veered from fairly cool sub-Goblin synth-rock to pretty dull and occasionally incongruous library-type music. Inconsistent, but with some good moments.

One thing I noticed about the film was the complete lack of booze (or other substances). That was kind of surprising, since it was, at least in part, a movie about vacationing teenagers, and it was it perhaps particularly conspicuous to me after watching a string of gothic horror movies, where it seems like everyone has a generous goblet of red wine or brandy in one hand. The characters in Ghosthouse drank coffee and ate chili—without beer. It can be done!