Sadly Over-hyped

People are voting emotionally.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This should be in a bargain bin. I have rarely seen such idiotic characters. If they would not have died I would kill them myself for such bad acting, makes you want to punch them and kill them yourself. Especially the 3 girls, actually forget this, all characters are acting like dumb idiots with no brains and no nerves.Besides the cast that keep screaming at everything, they don't react. None of the actors in this movie seems real. NO ONE would react like these pathetic zombies, and if they do; they deserve to die!The movie plot is good and with good acting and directing this could be a very strong movie. The directing and acting makes this version so lame that it should be burned.I love B movies cause there is something in them you don't get in the Hollywood big flicks; soul. This movie however has no soul, no body, not much besides the amazing story idea. I wish someone would pick it up and make a real movie with real actors. (Is is so bad that you need to really want to see the end to endure the acting, again, it is soooooooooooo bad I couldn't believe it.)A movie to watch, painfully, just to get the story behind it, good story, destructive acting and directing.

Italian goremeister Umberto Lenzi (under the hilarious almost Nabokovian pseudonym of 'Henry Humbert'!) takes on the well-worn haunted house sub-genre with effective results in this neglected little chiller from 1988, marketed as an 'Evil Dead' sequel in Italy.A ham radio DJ and his girlfriend team up with another interested party to investigate strange goings-on at an Old Dark House, the scene of strange murders 20 years earlier, after intercepting a radio distress call from their own future. Some great shock and gore moments follow (check out the falling guillotine scene!), along with a creepily atmospheric haunting theme tune for the evil clown doll. Yes, a clown doll: truly the stuff of nightmares!The thing that stood out for me the most, though, was hot thoroughly steeped in the 1980s the films fashions are! From the hero Paul, dressed as 'Back to the Future' Marty McFly complete with "life preserver", through Mark (played by Eddie Redmayne masquerading as a "Run to You" - era Bryan Adams), to Susan (styling by The Bangles) and Tina (charmingly described on the UK DVD box as a 'teenager with a face like a slapped arse'!) who looks like Molly Ringwald gone wrong. Truly a product of its time!

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.

Ghost House has been a hard movie to track down for some time, but if you do make the effort, be prepared for disappointment - the film itself is a bit of a washout. First of all the house is the same one as used in Fulci's "House by the Cemetery"...if only this movie was as good as that one! The plot sees a bunch of teenagers (two amateur detectives and a band of holidaymakers) investigating an empty house that was once the scene of a gruesome double murder. What follows is a very muddled series of hunting's and more murders, seemingly carried out by the ghost of a little girl and her toy clown. The various deaths and ghostly visions are laughable, including dozens of completely unrelated manifestations such as a ghost dog, the head of a corpse in a washing machine (why??) and a vat of something that looks like porridge under the floor. Most hopeless of all are the scenes in which the actors pretend to be attacked by the evil clown doll (an obvious but lame attempt to rip-off "Poltergeist"). The murders are fairly gory, but none are particularly convincing, and the acting is nearly all terrible, not helped by the script which just continues to make up excuses for all the characters to keep going back in house to get picked off. Plus the red-herrings that go nowhere (the hitchhiker and the crazy old caretaker), and explanation for the haunting which is pathetic...it seems as though Lenzi knew he wanted a ghostly little girl and a clown doll, and just wrote a story around it. In its favor, the film is well shot, and a few jolts actually do work (the one when the biker girl is washing her face in the sink was fun), but there is zero suspense or tension. As I said, it's not worth the effort. But if you really must see it, there's a great Region 2 DVD release - available from Amazon.co.UK. I have this edition, and its a nice looking remastered print (uncut and widescreen, no less), but even so, there are far better euro-horrors around than this.