Absolutely Fantastic

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

House of Lost Souls (1989) * 1/2 (out of 4)The fourth and final film in the "House" pictures that were made for Italian television (two by Lucio Fulci and two by Umberto Lenzi). This one centers on a group of friends who have to stay at a junky hotel after the road they're traveling on gets closed. It doesn't take long for strange things to begin happening and of course this leads to death.Lenzi directed THE HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT as well as this one and I guess the best thing you can say about this film is the fact that it's better than the other one he directed. Yeah, that's really not much of a recommendation but these two films show exactly why Italian horror was dying off. Their releases in America had already stopped and it's clear that they didn't have the budgets needed to make the type of film that fans would expect.In all honesty, the story here isn't original but at the same time I think it would have been a lot of fun had it been made in 1980 instead of 1989. I say that because earlier in the decade Lenzi would have been given a budget for special effects and I'm sure we would have gotten some classic death scenes. All of the death scenes here are poorly done or they're not even on the screen. Most of them contain very little blood and there's just nothing memorable about them.What's worse is that the characters are all annoying, the performances are rather bad and there's certainly not tension in the film. Lenzi's direction seems like he's just going through the motions as there's no style or anything else for that matter. HOUSE OF LOST SOULS is a pretty poor movie that just shows how far the genre had fallen.

Another in the series of mostly-forgotten "haunted house" genre flicks, made for Italian television in 1989. This one is directed by former genre master Umberto Lenzi, who hasn't, it seems, lost his touch for delivering some unexpected scenes of gratuitous gore, a few effective shocks, and plenty of cheesy Italo style. The plot is total rubbish, of course, and the acting is equally bad. This is primarily a film to appeal to genre fans who know what to expect: a few, choice moments of gore to liven up the otherwise predictable proceedings. Much of the film consists of the boring characters being chased round a house by a variety of lost souls, including an old woman, a mute man, a Tibetan monk (!), and plenty of other fun bits. Spiders show up to menace a kid, music and a plot device is stolen from DEMONS, and Lenzi seems to be enjoying himself here.The film is fairly gory in its depiction of a series of beheadings, the highlight being where the annoyingly obnoxious little kid loses his noggin in a washing machine, of all places! The dumb waiter decapitation is the only worthwhile shock the film offers, although some other scenes are handled very well on a low budget (the dream/nightmare opening sequence and the finale, where the lost souls mass to attack the living, in particular). Hardly a great movie, but Italian fans should know what to expect from these.

Do you have any nostalgia for those 80s horror movies that make no sense whatsoever? Then you will enjoy this movie.The plot devices they use keep people in the thick of it are stretched beyond all imagining, but where would the movie go if all the characters just left? So we can at least be amused by this. Three people experience nightmarish visions? I know, let's investigate further! (lol) Then there is the hard driving amped up pop soundtrack, so different from the somber mood of the 70s horror.I will not give away any of the plot devices, but late in the movie, something supernatural happens at the hotel to keep the people from leaving. When you see it you will think "if something can do that, why didn't they just drop a piano on them the moment they walked in the door? xD

"House of Lost Souls" is a very fine addition to the long line of fine European horror.**SPOILERS**Traveling through the countryside, friends Kevin, (Joseph Alan Johnson) Carla, (Stefania Orsola Garello) Massimo, (Matteo Gazzolo) Mary, (Laurentina Guidotti) Guido, (Costantino Meloni) and Daria, (Licia Colo) decide to stop off at a hotel to spend the night. As they decide to explore the house, they experience a series of weird visions and scenes that make them believe that it's haunted by malevolent spirits. Realizing that the small town nearby might have answers, they go out and discover that the hotel decades ago was the site of a brutal mass murder, and that the ghosts haunting the place where the victims of the rampage from the past and are soon out to terrorize the remaining guests inside, forcing them into a fight with the supernatural in order to escape it's deadly grounds.The Good News: This was a really interesting and exciting European-horror tale. There's some really fantastic scenes in here that come from it's wonderful setting. The opening visions of a knife-wielding Buddhist Monk that starts slashing at the camera starts it off at the right note, and once inside the house it has even more. Soon strange visions haunt them, as there's dead bodies that appear and disappear out of nowhere, blood dripping from the ceiling, spiders crawl over beds and ghosts materialize out of thin air and much more. Each of these is really great, as the spiders scene is the best. With the dripping blood starting off from the ceiling fan covering the victim on the bed, a split-second later they turn into spiders crawling all over the body in a long, protracted scene that is just infinitely creepy as it goes on. Another great one is the scenes down in the cellar, which are just great and really fun as there's plenty to like about them since they're just so much fun. From the howling winds that spring to life to the malevolent manifestations that appear out of nowhere and the film's ability to keep throwing people down there for more scenes of them is a great idea and definitely worthwhile. Those are really amongst the best parts of the film, as well as the later scenes of the demons coming alive. This one even has a fun severed head gag that is one of the better ones of the style. The finale is the fantastic assault of the undead ghosts chasing the remaining survivors through a crumbling house, and it's action-packed, tense and quite exciting, from the decision to fight the creatures to the way that they're able to fight back, this is all really great. The deaths in here are pretty good as well, mainly decapitations but they're all really good. From being done with hatchets to a spinning chainsaw to a falling window pane and by falling into a dryer, which is the single most impressive one. The way it happens is the best set-up in the world, the victim is just so deserving and because it's done on-screen makes it so great. This is one of the best things about the film which featured a lot of good things in it.The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot here that didn't work. The fact that the deaths here just weren't as good as the previous European horror fare to come along is cause for concern, as beyond a couple of them, most of the deaths in here are either done from an angle that makes the impact obvious but done in such a way as to render it impossible to see the full impact of it or to be done in a completely inane way that just doesn't look at all realistic. This is a far cry that doesn't match up for most of the ones in the past, which is something that can hold this one down. The other thing in this that doesn't work is the constant showing of the back-story which is just the same thing over and over again. Rather than doing anything new with them, showing anything different or even giving off new information, which should've been the point. These here are the film's few flaws.The Final Verdict: An incredibly fun European horror entry that has a lot going for it and only a few flaws, this here is quite a lot of fun. Give this a shot if you're really big on the European style of genre films or want a creepy little haunted house film without being grossed out, while those who aren't should heed caution.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language