Monday, March 23, 2020

Ghosthouse (1988)

A strange horror film, poorly done at times but quite inventive. Years ago a young girl (Kristen Fougerousse) who likes killing cats quickly progresses to killing her parents with the help of an evil doll. We fast forward to the present and radio ham Paul Rogers (Greg Rhodes) hears strange music and screams over the radio waves. Naturally he decides to track down the source of the signal with his girlfriend Martha (Lara Wendel) to an empty old house in the countryside...

There they find another bunch of young people, the guy Mark (Ron Houck) is also a radio ham and it is his and his girlfriend's Susan (Mary Sellers) voices Paul heard... though they haven't made these noises.... well yet. The attacks soon come though as do the reappearances of the young girl. The attacks involve various grisly attacks involving exploding jars, killer fan blades and even a guillotine which literally cuts a teen girl in half! Meanwhile weird caretaker Valkos (Donald O'Brien) is wandering around menacing them...

The film is terrifying... as in terrifyingly badly made with the film often cutting randomly mid-scene and the usual indifferent-to-bad acting. However the horror is inventive and frequently gruesome. It is also unintentionally hilarious, especially Martha who spends most of the film in a bad mood.