Load of rubbish!!

Lack of good storyline.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is one of those films with a pretty poor reputation that means I haven't got around to watching it until now. I wasn't missing much. THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR – one hell of a title that has little to do with the film itself – is notable as one of the earliest examples of the slasher genre, the sort of film where lots of pretty young folk are offed one by one by an unknown killer. It has assured direction by Michael Armstrong, who afterwards went to the continent to shoot grisly witchcraft horror MARK OF THE DEVIL, and a cast of youthful actors who were once big names in their heyday.Frankie Avalon, a one-time singer, has one of the major roles playing his typical character – young, handsome, popular with the ladies, charismatic to boot. He could almost be said to be playing himself. Then there's an obnoxious Richard O'Sullivan, before he found fame on television, and red herring George Sewell, who lurks around looking shifty a lot but that's about it. Dennis Price pops up as an inspector but he only gets a couple of scenes himself, while Jill Haworth's sole contribution is to sit around and look pretty, which she does well enough.Unfortunately, although the film looks good, it goes nowhere. The script is sub-par and the story plodding. It takes an age for the set-up to get going, and then things look like they're going to pick up with an exceptionally shocking and gory murder sequence about halfway through. Then things kick back to first gear and nothing else happens until the denouement, which itself consists of a couple of people chatting in a room for about ten minutes while suspense builds. There's more gore at the climax, and then everything's left unfinished, so it feels as if they ran out of money.Aside from those two murders, there's nothing to remember about this movie. The characters are trite, self-centred, and rather irritating, particularly in O'Sullivan's case, and the incredibly annoying Veronica Doran is another detraction the film has. There's far too little incident taking place, which would be all right if this was an exercise in atmosphere building, like some of the Italian gothics from the same era, but it's not. I enjoyed looking at the colourful '60s costumes and sets, but that enjoyment only went so far – and in the end I was just sitting, waiting for something – ANYTHING – to happen. It never did, which is why this one's a dud.

I'm hardly the first to say it, but memory is a funny thing. I taped this film off of TCM several years ago, and while the film largely struck me as average, the ending haunted me so profoundly that it left a lasting impact on my own work as a writer. I later imported a DVD copy from the UK on the strength of that final scene alone, but I kept putting off re-watching it due to the weaknesses of the story as a whole. Perhaps, too, there was some trepidation at seeing the ending again. I had a built it up so much in my mind that surely the last scene could never live up to my memory. Finally I cast aside my doubts and, having forgotten just about everything except the finale (and the fact that someone gets stabbed in the penis - ouch!), gave it a second shot.So much has happened between my first viewing and my second that the experienced proved to be profoundly different. I've become much more receptive to different kinds of cinema - so receptive, in fact, that people probably don't trust my opinions. That ship usually sails the minute you start recommending Andy Milligan movies. Anyway, I really enjoyed the film this time. Essentially it's the story of some bored twenty-somethings (and Frankie Avalon, for some strange reason) leaving a lame party and going to check out an allegedly haunted house. Over the course of the night, one of their number gets murdered, and with only one possible entrance to the house having been locked, the only explanation is that one of them is the culprit.Writer/director Michael Armstrong initially intended to make a much more psychedelic horror movie starring his pal David Bowie. The producers balked on Bowie (a move they no doubt came to regret) and forced Armstrong to take a more conventional approach. Even in its diluted form its still an impressive piece of work, with witty dialogue delivered by a capable cast (even Avalon seems shockingly at home in Swinging London), moody cinematography, a great location, and some well executed (and surprisingly bloody) murders. If the film makes one potentially fatal mistake, it's in spending too much time outside of the creepy abandoned house. Within the dusty ruin Armstrong and cinematographer Jack Atcheler are able to conjure an atmosphere reminiscent of the Italian Gothics. After the first murder, though, we spend a great deal of time back in the city as our heroes attempt to go on with their lives. Clearly the home is where the heart is with this movie, but Armstrong (or Gerry Levy, who rewrote much of the script at AIP's insistence) can only come up with a flimsy pretext to get the characters back there.As for that ending? Of course it let me down to some extent. My mind had warped it over the years, and in a way my conception of it fused with the stories I myself had been inspired to write after watching it. Looking at it more objectively, though, the sympathy the filmmakers have for their tragic killer still strikes a chord with me, and the final image is still strangely poignant. Perhaps the film isn't an exceptional murder mystery - more than a few clichés are accounted for - but it's nonetheless an entertaining and skillfully directed one. Certainly it's no classic, but it's far better than its 4.5 rating on IMDb would lead you to believe.

60s beach movie sensation Frankie Avalon stars as Chris, one of a group of crazy, swinging London 'kids' who decide to split their dullsville house party for a more atmospheric locale, a run-down, supposedly haunted mansion in the countryside. Rather stupidly, the group decide to hold a séance at the stroke of midnight, after which one of their number is brutally killed in a frenzied knife attack. Is the killer the ghost of the maniac who once lived there, or has one of the friends flipped their wig, man?Haunted House of Horror is, for the most part, very tedious viewing thanks to its formulaic plot, bland dialogue and wooden performances from a cast that, with only a couple of exceptions, look too old for their roles (Avalon was pushing thirty!!!). A little fun can be had from the film's groovy sixties fashion—floral shirts, cravats, mini-dresses and go-go boots—but the film's only real selling point as far as I am concerned are a couple of surprisingly bloody deaths, particularly the last one in which the victim gets a kukri (a Nepalese knife with a large curved blade) rammed into his crotch. Nasty!

I recorded "Haunted House Of Horror" because it sounded like a fun 60's slasher that was so bad it was good! It actually turned out to be a dull, messy slasher that left a lot to be desired.So we're introduced to a bunch of sixties past-its acting like kids at a party when they're actually in there 30's by the looks of things and one of the gets bored, so they decide to go to an even more boring old house to go ghost hunting! Are we actually supposed to like these characters? There's about 8 of them so we can't get any character development because we don't recognise who half of the are! In the haunted house someone gets murdered in quite an amusing way, blood flies everywhere (well I say blood, more like a can of Dulex) and instead of getting out to call the police, they decide to bury the body in case it's one of them. What a bunch of idiots! This is a daft story that's a bit of a mess really. We hardly get any action, but more boring talk, personally I think the whole film should've been set in this house, but we get out and then they stupidly go back and it turns into a who's-dunnit when it was bloody obvious who'd done it in the first place! Shock reveal? I don't think so.Uninvolving, uninspiring, unimaginative. I wouldn't bother, it's not even fun, I lost interest very quickly and I usually find these old slashers that are so bad they're good quite entertaining. Not this one though :(