the audience applauded

Fantastic!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

"House of the Damned" starts out promising enough, following an architect and his wife who visit a California mansion with a strange history. All is fairly normal at first, but after they meet a lawyer and his wife there, events take a turn.One of the more off-the-map haunted house films of the twentieth century, "House of the Damned" is a complete oddity in just about every sense of the word. It runs an awkward hour and three minutes long, meanders without any apparent purpose for the first fifty minutes, and then nosedives into a twist that is completely out of left field. The truth be told, there really is not much happening here, which is saying something for a feature that runs about sixty minutes. In spite of the run time, the film doesn't necessarily feel that short, but the script is a bit too skeletal, and the lack of legitimate thrills makes the audience yearn for a bit more development. It is not entirely a bad film, though. For what it's worth, it's wonderfully atmospheric, and hits notes similar to "House on Haunted Hill" and Robert Wise's superior thriller "The Haunting." The first half of the film does manage to ratchet some suspense and intrigue, with the proceedings becoming increasingly inexplicable.The acting here is solid, with Merry Anders and Ron Foster playing the lead on screen couple convincingly. As I said before, the film's conclusion is unexpectedly bizarre; it works well enough I suppose, but it does certainly soften the film's overall bite, which isn't much to begin with.Overall, "House of the Damned" is a fairly uneventful, single-note horror movie that is worth a watch as a genre oddity that has more or less been forgotten. It's not remarkable by any stretch of the imagination, but it is atmospheric and has two solid scare scenes that are visually fantastic. Ultimately though, it feels more like a clever episode of "The Twilight Zone" than it does a feature film—not that that's necessarily bad, but it certainly makes one wonder where the filmmakers were coming from. 6/10.

When I started watching House of the Damned I had no expectations. That turned out to be a good thing. At the beginning it was okay but it started going downhill immediately. The dialogue was cheesy, delivered in a stiff, choppy manner that was unappealing. I didn't feel any tension during the entire film, just a feeling that the life was being sucked out of me. The antagonists of the film weren't scary, turning out to be benign people trying to preserve their home. If you are going to call a movie House of the Damned, either the house or the inhabitants should darn well be damned. I wouldn't recommend this movie for fans of horror films as they will be sorely disappointed.

An architect and his wife go to remote castle like house somewhere in California. They are to do a survey of the house for the owners who have know retaken possession of the house after renting the place out for ten years. Once they arrive they find the road to the place blocked off by a makeshift dead end sign. Later that night, as they sleep in their beds something steals their keys to the place. What is going on? Moody and atmospheric tale in which there isn't much beyond the mood and the atmosphere. Here is the story of two couples alone in a big empty house who try to unravel what is causing the (few) strange events around them. The problem is that not a great deal happens and when you get to the final revelation its terribly anti-climatic. Certainly for the first half of the movie you're hooked by the mood and shadows of whats on the screen but then it suddenly begins to dawn on you that almost nothing has happened and unless something radical happens nothing is going to. Honestly there is enough for a half hour movie here but not enough to prevent boredom for the films one hour running time.This is not a movie to see pan and scan since all of the things that make the film so eerie and moody will be cut off by the panning and scanning. For all its flaws this is a movie that should be looked at to see how mood can be created in a widescreen image.Ultimately though, this is a movie thats best left to people who want to see a scary movie but one thats not too scary. Perfect for parents who want to show their kids an adult thriller but don't want them up all night screaming. The rest of us may want to take a pass unless an undemanding mood hits.(A Word of Warning- The DVD has the trailer on the disc and I suggest avoiding it until after you see the film. It gives away almost all of the high points of the film while suggesting a much more action packed film)

An obscure and rather uneventful but nevertheless atmospheric and effective little chiller which presents us with a new twist on "the old dark house" theme which may ultimately disappoint some viewers. I won't divulge it here for those who may feel inclined to check this one out: I'll just say that it combines elements from two well-known Tod Browning movies - FREAKS (1932) and MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) - and leave it at that! The plot deals with an architect and his wife having to spend the night in the infamous (and supposedly uninhabited) Rochester castle, who are later joined by the former's boss and his sassy girlfriend. However, before long, things start to go bump in the night: a bunch of keys mysteriously disappear and reappear with a couple of them missing, a few doors are inexplicably forbidden to the house dwellers, the girlfriend disappears after a quarrel with her intended, etc. It all seems to point in the direction of the crazed proprietress of the mansion who is currently spending her days in a mental institution but, eventually, we discover that there are even stranger forces at work here... As I said before, the moody lighting and occasional 'scary' set-pieces are the whole show in this one but, despite the lack of star names, the foursome acquit themselves quite adequately under the circumstances; in the latter stages of the film, Richard "Jaws" Kiel also makes an appearance as an unexpected 'guest' of the Rochester mansion.The low-priced Fox DVD is accompanied by a theatrical trailer which should not be viewed before the main feature as it virtually shows snippets from all the film's best sequences; interestingly, the much brighter trailer enabled me to make out some details which had eluded me during the film itself!