Monday, February 27, 2006

Ghosthouse (1988) Umberto Lenzi - La Casa 3

About 400 signs showed up for me to put out by the freeway in the middle of the night for my night job. Does this mean less posts? Maybe not, cause I'm getting pretty quick at finding spots for these even in O.C. towns I don't know so well. Homework is pretty light too, though I will be getting into some time consuming video production soon.

A quick review now, before me and Cub dig into Bad Dreams in our next post.

This tape looks pretty lame, Ghosthouse, and it says it is directed by one Humphrey Humbert, but grab it if you can. It's an Umberto Lenzi movie (Cannibal Ferox, Eyeball, City of the Walking Dead) that is as good as it gets for the 80's with violent deaths and... dare I say it, the movie is even scary. For one the music that accompanies the killings is the creepiest since Deep Red, with a little cartoon voice muttering repeated words over and over again. For two, the little girl is creepy, but not as creepy as her clown doll, which is bigger than her. I think they stole this clown from the toy that the little boy fears in Poltergeist, though this one is almost human size. Without giving too much away I think I can explain to you that this clown is the source of all evil in the movie. The father, an undertaker, stole it from the deceased who explicitly expressed that they were to be buried with their clown toy. The cheap bastard evidently gave this as a gift to his daughter. Oh no.

Anyway, flash forward a bunch of years and teenagers are camping at the abandoned house where the parents and daughter met their unnatural deaths. You get the idea.

The clown does not move around on it's own, well maybe a little, but it's gonna freak a lot of you out, I promise. The deaths are violent. With the title La Casa 3, the Italians were probably trying to pass this off as the 3rd movie in the Evil Dead series which is called La Casa over there. There is a Ghosthouse 2 (1988), also Italian, though it is perhaps not very closely related to this movie. It is also known as Witchcraft or Witchery and I think I have seen it around.

There is no U.S. DVD of Ghosthouse. There is a UK DVD.

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See Ghosthouse. Make an audio tape of the toy's theme music and play it everywhere you go. Check out the poster, the girl has a little audio tape, Deep Red style.

another movie:

So you say "Fear of clowns is played out", well perhaps yes, but I must also recommend Clownhouse, the most immoral movie ever made. The movie is so-so, but if you know the truth behind it about and its director, Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers, Jeepers Creepers 2), then you know that it is a serious shocker. It's fucked up and wildly inappropriate, as are scenes in Jeepers Creepers 2, if you know this backstory. I am aware that the whole matter is very serious and I'm not making light of it, but not watching the movie won't change the past. Victor Salva served his time, whether it was enough time is politics, something I don't shy away from in this blog, but this time I will. It's another story for a different day. Look into it and discover one of horror's most disgusting dirty little secrets.

3 comments:

David A. Zuzelo said...

I love these Filmirage flicks myself... always fun in a cheapjack kind of way. What caught my eye is that just this morning I was blogging about Enzo Sciotti and his amazing Anthropophagus artwork. Well, he did that Ghosthouse painting as well!

warrenzone said...

oh wow, this guy did everything!

http://page.freett.com/aghi/G2ita.htm

-Italian posters-

Stacie Ponder said...

I gotta track down GhostHouse!!! Sounds great.

And Bad Dreams? With Jennifer Rubin, right? Fuck yeah! That was on my short list of "movies I love and haven't seen in a long time but need to watch again soon". Awesome!!