I Watch Films: Bloodbath At The House Of Death

 

Bloodbath At The House Of Death

In 1975 at Headstone Manor, a businessman’s weekend retreat and girl’s summer camp, there is a gory massacre. Eight years later several scientists and researchers go there to try and find out what happened. There are spooks, scares, murders and dark secrets. It’s a comedy!

There are several good bits, in particular Vincent Price playing The Sinister Man who has been undead for hundreds of years trying to stop people using the manor, and whose acolytes are all idiots. There’s a fun scene in the library, that begins when a investigator pulls out a book called The Hidden Door, and doesn’t notice the door opening behind her; the punchline is childish and very funny. There are plenty of jokes and scenes referencing other horror films and, generally more successfully, things that aren’t horror films. Unfortunately these are all embedded in a meandering set of overlong skits. It takes ages for each mis-matched pair of investigators to arrive at the House, and then they wander around, explaining their increasingly unlikely back-stories. It’s a relief when some actual bloodbath begins.

Watch This: For some zany 1980s horror comedy
Don’t Watch This: It insists on having long, unfunny sequences linking up mediocre jokes