'House' a.k.a. grin and bear.

As usual I've done no research on this movie whatsoever and so what follows will be an emotional account at best. Having said that I was informed by a fellow reviewer that this flick was supposedly the first incarnation of the fantasy-horror genre. And that's about all the wider context I will provide at this stage.

It follows the story of 7 unmarried school girl friends visiting one of their aunt's - widowed from the second world war - in the summer. Turns out the house is haunted by an evil genius feline by the name of Blanche (it's a white cat) and the auntie herself who is a witch/demon/evil who-the-fuck-knows.

I was too distracted by all the on-screen chaos to notice the characters explaining what had happened to the aunt. Her husband had been drafted to the air force during WW2 and had never returned after the war had come to a close. From what I gather, she grieved, died inside, the cat turned up, possessed her, and she is sustained by eating unmarried women. She awaits the return of her most definitely dead husband. She does this because she loves her husband so much she chooses to wait for his return. I think. He probably eloped because she was one crazy chick.

One by one the girls get picked off over lots of hysterical screaming, instilled with the hope that the patriarchy - the 'handsome' Mr. Togo - will come and save them from mortal peril. *Eyes roll*. This film was definitely made in 1977. A fact driven home by the ludicrously elongated, tawdry special effects scenes. The dancing skeleton, the limb filled piano and the floating head with a penchant for bum meat are just a few examples. I appreciate they didn't have Marvel-level advancements at the time but that doesn't save this film from being tacky. And not even in a funny way. However, I must concede I appreciated the sky and background in the wider shots being largely painted etc as this was conducive to the overall ethereal quality of a fantasy world in which anything can happen, like in a horror movie.

One thing that bothered me the most at the beginning was the watermelon salesman. Worst business decision ever. A strange man selling one type of fruit on the edge of the forest in the middle of nowhere and not one of the girls thought that was remotely suspicious, odd, nonsensical, creepy? I thought the rest of the film might make more sense so I thought I shouldn't be that bothered really. Then I watched the rest of the film. Burning, flying logs you had to physically beat away with your feet and fists and it was probably just an illusion, KungFu? I've also never known anyone to get beaten so hard with mattress filling their clothes get stripped off.

I also hated the music. That piano motif was bloody irritating. The jaunty soundtrack consisted of 3, possibly 4, pieces of music used interchangeably between scenes. Sloppy! Almost as bad as the soundtrack in Twister. That and I'm fairly certain a complete fucking mutter was let loose in the Foley art recording studio. Babies crying out of nowhere during a sunset? What? It was as if they nicked one of the keyboards from our school days, discovered the 'DJ' button, had a psychotic break and got down to recording whilst high on meth and bathsalts.

One more thing. I've previously referenced one of the prepubescent spinsters, KungFu. Wanna hazard a guess as to why she's called that? Yeah, she does KungFu. That's her thing, y'know? There was a ridiculous scene which preceded the auntie dancing around the house like a twat in which KungFu faces the same sunset that we saw back in the city, proclaiming, "I love the countryside", with a self-satisfied smile on her face. Piss off KungFu. I detest this film. And I hate you.

I understood what this film was trying to do but the endless screaming, the poor special effects, the fast and loose narrative threaded together by shoddy acting, headachey camera work and weak scoring made this film an endurance trial.

1 pointless watermelon salesman out of 5