Truly Dreadful Film

Excellent, a Must See

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Roger Cobb (Willaim Katt, reprising his role from the first film for as long as it takes to get his paycheck) is now married to someone named Kelly and they have a daughter named Laurel. There's no mention of his first wife, Sandy, or his son Jimmy. They visit the old Cobb house after Roger's father dies - this must be a side universe, the universe where no one gives two shits about continuity - and have to deal with Burke, the stepbrother who keeps trying to get Roger to sell out on his promise to their father to never sell the house.This isn't the actual house from House, so that's already a strike against this one. But if the interior of the house looks familiar to you, that's because the same sets were used in The People Under the Stairs.Were you excited to see William Katt? Well, he dies around five minutes in, the victim of a car crash that leaves his daughter in a wheelchair - the kind of wheelchairs that old ladies roll around in and leave in their bedrooms to haunt you (see Burnt Offerings). Like do they even make wicker wheelchairs any more?Burke has the mafia making him try and take the house, as they want to dump illegal waste there. Their leader is a little person who needs a machine to remove all of the phlegm in his throat, I shit you not.Roger is still in the house and various magical Native Americans are kindly enough to protect Roger's family. Oh yeah - Denny Dillon, who was on HBO's Dream On and the disastrous Jean Doumanian produced season of Saturday Night Live is in this as a maid.I like one scene in here a lot, where snakes take over the minds of two mafia guys and they see one another as human snakes. The practical effects are great here, yet wasted for what's a really quick scene.There's also a pizza that comes to life and sings a song before being tossed in a trash compactor. This scene is Troll 2 level inanity and stupidity. It's also one of the few good parts of this slog of a motion picture.PS - That's Kane Hodder's face in the pizza.This is one of the late 80's/early 90's movies that has no real handle on when it should be a comedy and when it should be horror. If it was an Italian film, that would be forgiven because there'd be loads of gore.You've seen worse movies - and worse House movies - than House IV. But in a world packed with strange new films to discover and old favorites to enjoy again and again, let me be the one to do the watching for you. You don't really need to see this.

William Katt may be best known for playing the Greatest American Hero, but he's also the hero of this franchise.One thing nice about someone like me obsessed with going through entire series is that I can tell you which are worth watching. So, without hesitation, you should just watch the first House and skip to this "final" chapter. The middle one or two, depending upon who you listen to, aren't worth a step inside.Not to sound too confusing in the previous paragraph, this is sorta both part III and IV. Following House II, The Horror Story came out and in other countries, it was labelled as House III. For no American reason and not to confuse those foreigners, I suppose, they changed this title to House IV.Anyways, this wasn't a great movie, but it was fairly decent and a nice conclusion to the original, something the other sequel(s) totally skipped. Katt's back and alongside his on-screen wife, they elevate this movie far past what it should've been. Cobb (Katt) gets into a horrific car accident leaving his wife and daughter (??) a house Cobb's brother desperately wants. Well, guess what? The house has ideas of its own.I put the (??) above due to the gender-swapping of the child. In the original, and the main premise of the first one, Cobb is mourning the loss of his SON. He spends the entire movie looking for him and seeing him around that film's haunted house. So, I guess the child got a sex change over the years?I only bring this up as one of the most blatant mistakes or dumb ideas in horror movie franchises, whichever it was for the writer/crew: mistake or dumb idea. I mean, even Katt himself isn't dumb enough to miss this error and probably said: "Wait a minute guys. *I* was in the original and my child was a HE!"Anyways, the movie wasn't scary and it took too long to get to the goofiness the series, or at least 1 and 2 were known for and when it did, it was too little/too late/didn't mesh with the rest.Still, it's worth a watch to conclude the series until it's rebooted.***Final thoughts: Speaking of gender-swapping, the series' producer/owner, Sean S. Cunningham has expressed a strong desire to direct/remake/reboot his franchise, but now with the Greatest American Heroine as the protagonist. Not that it really matters who enters the house to search for their child, so I am uncertain why that's such a big deal for him to announce. Eh, I'm curious to enter the first House again.

Roger Cobb (William Katt) is killed in a car accident. His family must move into the house that has haunted him for several years. Soon the family begins to experience scary and unexplained phenomena. This film is funny and stupid! There's something for everyone here. I love this movie, which is hilarious! Sounds corny? No matter what anyone says, this is utterly fantastic. I refuse to totally dismiss this, because I find it quite engaging, in a guilty pleasure sense. I thought this was cute and not bad. All of the fancy characters struggle against a system that has perpetuated falsehoods. It's not the thing to see if you're in the mood for something uplifting, or something with tons of action. 7/10.

I recall from back in my teen days that I actually liked this sequel. And guess what? Having just re-watched it, I still kind of like it! Oh sure, the plot feels like incoherent rubbish, the humor is infantile, the drama is pretty lame (and way too much focused on in the first half of the film) and the horror is ridiculous. But "House IV" does make an effort to tie in with Steve Miner's original from 1986. Not only by starring William Katt playing Roger Cobb again (thereby somewhat serving up a story that could be a continuation - after several years - of the first film, ignoring the franchise's two other stand-alone installments), but also the tone of this 4th film and the nature of the events pretty much try to be in sync with what the original was all about (basically mixing horror & comedy with an anecdotal result). If you've enjoyed the first 'House', then 'House IV' almost feels right. Almost, as it just doesn't work as well as the first one. You'll still get a film rigged together with some amusing moments, most of the time involving fun SFX (the pizza-face man, the silly snake vs insect villain shout-out, the 'watery climax'). And I suspect they threw in that irrelevant Indian mumbo-jumbo sub-plot because a film like "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" got away with it too (or well, maybe it didn't, but they threw it in anyway). Whether you'll find "House IV" stupid or amusing, it's certainly stuff they're not making anymore these days. So I'd say it's worth a peek for that alone.