{"id":1292,"date":"2024-07-24T23:57:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T23:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:42:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:42:03","slug":"house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/24\/house\/","title":{"rendered":"House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"House <\/strong>(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, creature violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steve Miner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ethan Wiley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Manfredini\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign, Susan French, Erik and Mark Silver, Dwier Brown, Mindy Sterling, Alan Autry, Steven Williams, Ronn Carroll.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $19.4 million (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The comedy-horror House<\/strong> marks a Friday the 13th<\/sup> reunion of sorts. It reunites producer Sean S. Cunningham, director Steve Miner, composer Harry Manfredini and Ronn Carroll who played the cop at Alice\u2019s bedside at the end of the first movie. He plays (big surprise!) another cop. The only one missing is Adrienne King.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have to admit I didn\u2019t much care for House<\/strong> when I first saw it. I went to see it late one Sunday afternoon after I finished my shift at the ACME. It wasn\u2019t so much the F13 connection that attracted me than it was the studio that distributed it. I always made an effort to see everything released by New World Pictures. It didn\u2019t matter how crappy the picture turned out to be. I enjoy low budget exploitation flicks like House<\/strong>. How low budget is it? The flashback scenes set in the Vietnamese jungle look like they were shot in the woods behind somebody\u2019s house. The creature effects are shamelessly cheesy. The cast is comprised by B and C-listers. Need I continue?<\/p>\n

\u00a0In any event, the movie\u2019s unevenness made it difficult to know how to take it. It\u2019s too goofy to be scary and the evil being that the protagonist fights makes it too dark to laugh at. Over the years, I\u2019ve developed an appreciation for House<\/strong>. I came to realize that its flaws are part of its charm and appeal. It\u2019s a bad movie, but it\u2019s the fun kind that\u2019s not too painful to watch.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In case you can\u2019t tell by the title, House<\/strong> is about a haunted house. It belongs to an elderly woman (French, Somewhere in Time) who hangs herself in the movie\u2019s opening scene. Her nephew, horror writer Roger Cobb (Katt, Carrie), inherits the place and decides to move in temporarily. Could it be because it\u2019s the scene of his young son\u2019s disappearance the year before?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The tragedy affected both his marriage and career. He\u2019s divorced from his TV actress wife Sandy (Lenz, Death Wish 4) and hasn\u2019t written a new book since the disappearance. Cobb plans to write a novel based on his experiences while fighting in Vietnam, an idea that his publisher and fans aren\u2019t crazy about. Strange things start to happen almost immediately after he moves in. Strange creatures appear, garden tools fly around trying to kill him, those sorts of things. It soon becomes apparent it\u2019s all connected to something that happened to him during the war, something involving his buddy Big Ben (Moll, Night Court).<\/p>\n

\u00a0My first impression of House<\/strong> is that it\u2019s an ideal choice for a preteen\u2019s first R-rated horror flick. It\u2019s not too gory and only moderately scary. The film\u2019s light-hearted tone makes it easy for 12YOs to handle. It\u2019s amusing at times. I defy you not to laugh at how fake the monsters look, especially the little hag that takes the form of Cobb\u2019s ex-wife. There\u2019s a funny gag about the creature\u2019s severed hand that attaches itself to a little boy that Cobb is babysitting for his attractive neighbor Tanya (Stavin, Howling V). George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) plays Harold, a nosy neighbor who proves useless in a paranormal crisis. His character is fairly obnoxious, but the actor brings his A-game to the role, so why knock it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another sign that House<\/strong> is a low budget job is the soundtrack. The two songs heard on the soundtrack- \u201cYou\u2019re No Good\u201d and \u201cDedicated to the One I Love\u201d- are covered by other singers. I can only surmise the makers couldn\u2019t afford the rights to the original songs. However, Manfredini\u2019s score is very good. It\u2019s an ideal fit for this movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast does a good job as well. Moll makes a great scary villain. The makeup artists did a stellar job on him. Katt isn\u2019t all that bad a leading man. The storyline is pretty good thanks to a competent script from Ethan Wiley. It\u2019s competently shot and edited. Its biggest problem, like I said, is its tonal imbalance. I\u2019m willing to overlook that because the movie is so much fun. It\u2019s most definitely campy, but that\u2019s obviously what Miner was going for. It makes for a more enjoyable flick. I\u2019d say that this House<\/strong> is worth visiting.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, creature violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steve Miner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ethan Wiley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harry Manfredini\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign, Susan French, Erik and Mark Silver, Dwier Brown, Mindy Sterling, Alan Autry, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/House-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1906,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/1906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}