House IV (1992) New Line/Comedy-Horror RT: 94 minutes Rated R (language and horror/fantasy violence) Director: Lewis Abernathy Screenplay: Geof Miller and Deirdre Higgins Music: Harry Manfredini Cinematography: James Mathers Release date: January 29, 1992 (US) Cast: Terri Treas, Scott Burkholder, Denny Dillon, Melissa Clayton, Dabbs Greer, Ned Romero, Ned Bellamy, John Santucci, Mark Gash, Paul Keith, William Katt. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ** ½
House IV marks a return to form for the comedic horror series after the more serious third entry which was released as The Horror Show (1989) in the US and House III in all other countries. It’s the only installment that has anything to do with any of the other entries. Up until this fourth movie, they’ve all been standalone films with each one centering on a different house and set of characters. It’s the first one not to play theatrically (it went straight to video) and the last one in the series. Now that you’re up to speed, let’s proceed with the review.
House IV is a direct sequel (sort of) to the first House with William Katt (The Greatest America Hero) reprising his role as author Roger Cobb. Funny he never mentions his previous supernatural experiences to his new family, wife Kelly (Treas, The Terror Within) and teen daughter Laurel (Clayton). He never mentions his ex-wife and son from the first House either. And what about the old haunted house he inherited from his aunt? What happened to it? It’s almost like the first movie never happened [cue Twilight Zone music].
In the here and now of House IV, Roger has a stepbrother Burke (Burkholder, Steel and Lace) who’s been trying to convince him to sell their late father’s old house to some shady types. Roger can’t bear to part with it and the memories it holds. Obviously, there’s a little…. okay, a lot more to it, but that’s not important right now. I’ll circle back to this.
While driving home after a weekend at the house, the Cobb family gets into a terrible car accident. Roger dies after being taken off life support and Laurel ends up in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down. Kelly decides the best thing for her and her daughter is to move into the old house and start over. They settle in without cleaning the place first. I can only surmise Kelly’s going for a haunted house aesthetic with all the dust and cobwebs.
Their moving in, of course, pisses off Burke. He assumed the house was his after his stepbrother’s death. I don’t think this guy knows how estate laws work. In any event, he needs to find a way to get them out of the house fast or else he’ll be in big trouble with the midget mob boss Mr. Grosso (Gash, To Live and Die in L.A.) looking to obtain the property with the intention of using it as an illegal toxic waste dumping site for his factory. Ah, okay. This explains the two goons that Burke always hangs around with.
Of course, supernatural stuff starts happening. A dog lamp comes to life to protect Laurel from masked intruders. A pizza becomes something scarier than the nasty anchovies on it. Laurel’s mattress eats her in front of her horrified mom. Also, there’s something a little off about the new housekeeper Verna Klump (Dillon, Saturday Night Fever). She’s unusually interested in what’s going on in the house.
So what’s the deal with this house? Maybe it has something to do with it being built on sacred Native American ground? There’s a spring with healing powers running beneath the house. That’s why Roger and his father before him refused to sell. Now Kelly has spirits trying to warn her about Burke and his evil scheme. Among the spirits is….. oh, come on! Do I really need to say? You know this.
Directed by one-timer Lewis Abernathy (co-writer of DeepStar Six), House IV is entertaining but uneven. It tells an okay haunted house story that sometimes veers into the absurdly comic with characters like Mr. Grosso who comes off more like a freak show attraction than a villain to be feared. In addition to his small stature, he has an issue with phlegm clogging his lungs. It’s bad enough to warrant the use of a vacuum machine (“The Phleg-matic”) to get it all out. Now get this. The sadistic little creep forces people to drink the gross stuff in order to show who’s boss. YUCK!
The true centerpiece, however, is the pizza with the talking face in the center. It’s brought to the house by a delivery guy who dazzles mother and daughter with a song-and-dance called “I’m Your Pizza Man” before relinquishing the pie. When Kelly sees that their dinner is alive (and singing the annoying Pizza Man jingle), she goes all Norman Bates on it, stabbing it furiously before stuffing it down the garbage disposal. She then tells her grossed-out daughter, “There! No more anchovies!”
Let’s talk about the daughter Laurel for a moment. She gets around in an ancient wooden wheelchair that looks like it was salvaged from the set of 1980’s The Changeling. She’s supposed to be 12YO. The actress playing her, the late Melissa Clayton who died of melanoma in 2017, was around 19 at the time of filming. I never would have guessed she was that old. It’s weird how much she looks like a preteen. It’s weirder that she and her mother manage to get that big clunky wheelchair up and down the stairs. I don’t see a stair lift anywhere.
I wouldn’t say the acting in House IV is bad. I definitely wouldn’t call it good either. The word I’m looking for is otherworldly, an adjective that also applies to some of the goings-on- e.g. the scene where Burke finally gets his comeuppance at the end. That is truly freaking bizarre! Back to the acting, it’s passable, but the characters always seem one step removed from reality. The plumber (Keith, The Last American Virgin) who shows up to check the pipes is like a visitor from another realm. There’s also a Native American, a family friend named Ezra (Romero, Hang ‘Em High), on hand to lay some NA mumbo-jumbo on Kelly when she needs answers. Okay, he’s more of a cliché than anything else, but he fits right in with the rest of the weirdness. The most bizarre performance comes from Burkholder. He’s like a parody of a bad guy.
I will say House IV has an interesting cast. Dabbs Greer, who played Reverend Alden on Little House on the Prairie, shows up for one scene playing Kelly’s concerned dad. Denny Dillon was one of the cast members on the disastrous 1980-81 season of SNL. Ned Bellamy, who plays one of Burke’s goons, is one of those actors whose face you recognize but can’t quite place. He’s played small roles in several films and TV shows, but he’s probably best known for playing Guard Youngblood in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Dr. Tom Mason (Bela Lugosi’s “double”) in Ed Wood (1994). As for William Katt, he’s not in it all the much, but he does fine with his limited screen time. Treas is also fine as the widow dealing with more than a disabled child and a**hole brother-in-law.
I saw House IV way back in ’92 when it hit video stores with no fanfare. I thought it was okay, but never felt compelled to watch it again until now. I’m a completist as you all know. I reviewed the first three House movies. It wouldn’t have been fair not to do the fourth and final one as well. I didn’t mind watching it. It’s more or less on par with the first two movies. The special effects look just as cheap and cheesy. You can’t take a single bit of it seriously. It’s amusing and not the least bit scary. It’s weird is what it is. Is that such a bad thing?
