Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

I run a movie nostalgia site called 'Natsukashi,' in which we take a film that we have seen in our youth and have not viewed since, rewatch it through the eyes of an adult and then podcast the results. One contributor selected 'House,' and we were fortunate enough to be joined by 'House' writer and 'House 2' director Ethan Wiley for the podcast.

He was very open, fun and had a lot to say about both films, as well as many interesting nuggets of information about his earlier industry work at ILM (George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic), and Joe Dante's 'Gremlins.'

The entire interview I kept thinking that it would make a great DVD commentary, so if you wish to hear it, here's the link: http://natsukashi.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/episode-xxxv-house-with-its-writer-ethan-wiley/).

Enjoy!

Once in a while you stumble upon that horror movie that's just so unspeakably bad that it ends up being good. This was not one of those times. In all honesty, I wanted to like House, I really did. I remembered seeing this movie when I was a young kid, so I figured if nothing else, I'd appreciate it for its nostalgic value. In the end however, it was a true struggle to find even a hint of redeeming value to House.

Here we meet a famous author, Roger Cobb, who decides to move into his recently deceased Aunt's house to begin writing his personal memoirs of the Vietnam war. Ironically, this was the same house that his son mysteriously disappeared in, although it is unspecified how long ago those events took place. As he tries to get work done on his book, strange happenings begin ocurring in the house. These include household items coming to life, monsters and ghosts appearing, etc. When Roger decides to find out what happened to his son, he finds that what is taking place may be tied to is own past with the war. It all comes together in what is possibly the worst, and most non-sensical ending I've ever seen in a movie.

What a mess this movie is. Is it a monster movie? A ghost story? A haunted house movie? A horror movie? A comedy? It tries to be all of these, and it accomplishes the mind-boggling feat of failing at all of them. Bottom-of-the-barrel special effects, random flashback sequences scattered aimlessly, no gore or scares to be spoken of...What were they thinking when they made this? Even the music score by the usually phenomenol Harry Manfredini is bland and stereotypical. I apologize to any fans I may have offended, but this was just crap. I can understand how it can be viewed positively with some nostalgic value, but to call it "classic" is just stretching it. Otherwise, you may be able to get a laugh or two out of this one just for how bad it is.