i must have seen a different film!!

Fresh and Exciting

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

So the opening credits say "Story by Humphrey Humbert", but that's really just Umberto Lenzi, the Italian writer/director who has done SO MANY horror flicks under various names. He doesn't waste any time getting into the gross, gory murders. This one is definitely NOT for the kiddies! No big names here. "Paul" is a ham radio nut, and he hears strange things over the air, and of course he gets involved. This leads to TROUBLE.... bad acting. bad directing. campy. and now available on Blue Ray !Martha, the girlfriend ? wife? has an odd accent, because the actress seems to have been born in Chermany. Paul is miraculously able to pinpoint where the weird broadcast is coming from in no time at all, and they let themselves into the house..... always a good idea. Some okay special effects, but the sound dubbing is WAAAY off, and there are so many TERRIBLE edits, it's distracting. One of Lenzi's later works -- its so bad, its a camp classic at this point. It's a 1980's time capsule... the hairdos and the clothes. Kind of like a John Waters if he did horror films. Check it out! Recently released on a double disk with "Witchery".

Umberto Lenzi's Ghosthouse just about has all the trademarks of a late era Italian horror. A haunted house. "Teenage" victims. Gore. Cheesiness. Bad acting. It's all there, and it's all good.Back in 1967, a crazy father discovers his cat murdered in his basement, and his daughter holding a pair of bloodied scissors. Understandably losing the rag, he locks his daughter in the basement and goes upstairs, and that's when things get weird. A bulb expands and explodes and a maggoty thing appears and splits his head open with an axe. When mother comes to investigate a mirror explodes in her face, performing the good old Italian eyeball trauma, and then she gets a knife through her neck for her trouble.Fast forward to 1987, where CB enthusiast Paul is discussing Simon Le Bon and Kim Basinger over his radio. He catches a strange signal where a man is crying for help, followed by a weird tune and indecipherable vocals, and using his computer, somehow, he manages to track down the signal to a house in the country. Now brace yourself because this is a big surprise – it's the house from the start of the film.Grabbing his girlfriend Lara Wendel (who hilariously spends most of the film in a bad mood with him), Paul heads out to the house, where he finds CB operator Jim, his girlfriend, his brother and his Jim Carrey lookalike sister/pain in the arse Tina. Problem is, Jim acknowledges that the voice on the tape is his, but he's only just set up his CB rig and hasn't used it yet. That night, Jim is drawn to the basement, where a small girl and a creepy looking clown doll appear, and Jim finds himself uttering those words that Paul taped the day before…and ends up dead.I like Ghousthouse for many reasons. First, there's the cast, including Lara Wendel (Red Monks, Killing Birds), Donald O'Brien (Mannaja, Zombie Holocaust) and Bob Champagne (Witchery). Then there's the fact that the film splits into two plot threads rather than have everyone just stuck in the house being chased by ghosts. That does happen to some of the characters for the remainder of the film, but two characters never actually return to the house, and instead try and investigate the origin of the haunting, pursued by O'Brien (who plays a deranged caretaker in slasher mode). Then there's the sheer amount of haunted house action Lenzi pours into the film, from the usual taps pouring blood, appearing/disappearing ghosts, moving objects, disembodied laughter etc, to the more surreal basement full of quick lime and an appearance by the Grim Reaper.Gore wise it's pretty good. You've got the messy killings at the start, someone being stabbed with shears, a hammer killing, and a character being cut in two. There's also the sub plot involving the homeless black thief guy that's maybe not worth dwelling on too much. Ghosthouse is for me one of the finest of these cheapo horror films the Italians were churning out before the industry gave up, and further proof that Lenzi can be a good director if he wasn't too obsessed with killing animals for jungle flicks. Check out his seventies gangster movies – they're all gold.I've seen posted on the 'goofs' section here that Lenzi made the mistake of putting Henrietta's date of birth as "1938" on her tombstone, but it clearly says "1958" – give the guy some credit.

By the late 80's Umberto Lenzi had seen his better days of his career and this movie is just a proof of how it must have been a struggle to get this together. Well all in all it's a decent attempt if it's compared with many other movies with a haunted house theme.The Italian horror movie genre was dying out in the 80's and so had the Italian film industry in general. No international productions were made and the days of glory of the 70's were long gone. Lenzi was one of the few directors trying to stay afloat.It's surprising how good the film still is with such a limited budget. It has good creepy atmosphere and music but one of its shortcomings is really bad acting. It could have been so much better if they had had better actors or at least had their voices dubbed over. I couldn't help laughing at the overacting and forced dialogue that seemed like they read their lines from paper.After all it still was such a pleasant surprise. It's so much better than many other horror films with similar theme.

I first saw Ghosthouse around 1996, and while I sat through it, not much of an impression was made. But the memories of the movie remained, and specific shots remained in my mind. Eventually I watched it again, and was struck with how charming it is. The script is unpretentious, with some incredibly simplistic writing. But the horror elements are a bizarre mix of fairly disconnected clichés. But it will stick with you, not in its entirety, but just little things.I watched the movie a third time recently, and I'm willing to concede a few more substantial faults. The pacing is awkward and it slows down a whole lot during some sequences. Some of the things - like the little storm in the bedroom - are laughable.Despite these faults, the fact is that this cheap movie is a memorable one. For a horror movie, the ability to remain in our memory is a really important one.