Movie Review: House of Damned (1996)

Given that Roger Corman attached his name to this production, I had high hopes for this film. Corman directed many memorable low budget horror flicks in the 1960's. I particularly enjoyed his adaptations of Poe's stories such as The House Of Usher, The Pit And Pendulum and The Raven which starred the late great Vincent Price. These films, despite low budget, had solid acting, atmosphere, suspense, strong characterization, intriguing plot development and delivered some chilling moments. Sadly, House Of The Damned, for the most part, sacrifices these qualities in lieu of cheesy low budget special effects, gratuitous nudity and mindless gore topped with cliché fast edits and camera angles.

The film starts off interestingly enough with some beautiful location shots in Ireland as well as some decent period costuming and props. But it's straight downhill from here. Instead of spending some time building atmosphere and suspense, or creating characters we might care about, - the director opts to start running up the body count.

We are briefly introduced to a young couple with marriage problems, Will and Maura South, played by Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul, and their daughter, Aubrey South, played by Briana Evigan (Greg Evigan's real life daughter) who have inherited an old Irish mansion. After moving in they begin to experience things that go bump in the night. The couple's young daughter is then transported into some other dimension and they turn to a group of paranormal investigators for help. Unfortunately, their efforts come too late to stop Maura South from becoming possessed.

Sound familiar? It should. The "plot." what little there is, is a tired convoluted hodgepodge sewn together from a number of different horror flicks. The film steals heavily from films such as Poltergeist and The Legend Of Hell House,' but lacks any of the qualities which made these pictures interesting.

Even the soundtrack has been lifted from The Omen.

The audience spends the balance of the film being bounced from one "spooky" event to another which in this film, substitutes for coherent plot development. The lead characters are so ill conceived and are so badly acted - the audience doesn't care what happens to them. To make matters worse, the "spooky" events are either utterly cliché or unconvincing due to low tech - low budget special effects - a mortal sin even for the most lowbrow horror film lover.

If you like body counts and skin, there are far better movies out there. For those interested in seeing well done haunted house flicks, I recommend you check out classics like The Innocents (1961), The Haunting (1963), Legend of Hell House (1973), Amityville Horror (1979), Poltergeist (1982) or look into Roger Corman's early American International films and pass on House Of The Damned.

Rob Rheubottom