What's amazing about the above trailer is how it doesn't get the movie's tone at all. House is the story of a horror, Roger Cobb (the Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt), with a tortured past (Vietnam vet, his son died, his TV star wife divorced him) who moves into his Aunt's old house after she dies so he can have some peace while he writes his Vietnam memoirs. We find all of this out in the first fifteen minutes of the film. Yeah... it's jam-packed with information. We see flashbacks of his son's drowning and Vietnam flashbacks as he writes. Flashbacks are one of the few things that all for House films have in common (the others: Sean Cunningham produces, Henry Manfredini does the score, and Kane Hodder does stunts).
Once all of the setup is out of the way, House is pretty damn fun. It's based on a story by Fred Dekker (Monster Squad!) annd it's a lot funnier than I remembered. If it had someone with the style of Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson at the helm instead of Steve Miner, it could be in the pantheon of great horror comedies if not great horror movies. William Katt isn't the best lead, but he does enough. Most of the credit can be distributed in three places: George Wendt, Richard Moll, and the monsters.
Wendt first. The man is a comedic powerhouse. After a scene in which Katt runs from the house in army gear and slides across the walkway to his house arms in the air, Wendt (who, for some reason, walked his dog into his neighbor's yard to have it go to the bathroom) comments to his dog, "Writing looks like fun, huh?" Another great line is, "Solitude's always better with someone else around." And When Wendt gets mislead into helping Katt catch a monster, his reaction is gold. Clearly, casting for House II recognized this as they cast John Ratzenberger for a small role to capture some more of that Cheers magic.
Richard Moll, better known as Bull on Night Court, plays the main villain (or the "boss" of the movie). Not only is he the ghost responsible for tormenting Katt, but Katt was in Vietnam with the man and wouldn't put him out of his misery, leaving Moll (Big Ben in the film) to be captured, tortured, and killed. He's psychotic as a man in the rinky-dink Vietnam flashbacks (clearly they had no money for those sets) and he's terrifying and sinister as the ghost.
Which brings me to the monsters. I love practical effects and even though everything is very clearly rubber, that doesn't make it any less fun or scary and, in fact, fits the tone of House very well. And the first monster we see really sucks the viewer into the world, waiting to see what's next.
The house is malicious and even though the result of the haunting really doesn't make any sense, the house does some awesome trippy things. My favorite is the lawn tools that stalk Katt. The film also gets a bit of mileage out of mirrors, but I won't say how. I'll just say I appreciated the effort.
I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that it's a happy ending with the family back together again. I wouldn't say anything at all, but come House IV, it's going to be an issue.
House is a near-classic, must-see horror comedy. I appreciated it much more upon second viewing. There's so much good in it that its easy to forgive the fact that the story really doesn't make too much sense. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the remaining films.
Still brought to us by New World Pictures (Roger Corman rules!), but this House II is nothing like House. The trailer does a better job of capturing the tone of the film (and misses the fact that Bill Maher is in it), but it doesn't feel like a sequel. I think they had a script that featured a house, came up with the epic subtitle (The Second Story) and through it together. I'm actually all for films where it's a different movie under the same umbrella (like what John Carpenter wanted to do with Halloween), but House isn't broad enough subject to do it. House II has more in common with the Waxwork series than the first House (which has an awesome tag line in and of itself: Ding Dong. You're Dead). And yes, Waxwork was released after House II. And yes, the Waxwork series also veers off in an unrelated direction with its sequel.
The score for House II is an improvement from the first, which wasn't bad, it just wasn't that memorable. As mentioned, Bill Maher makes an appearance with Amy Yasbeck (Wings) and John Ratzenberger (who is featured far more prominently in the trailer than the film... and they use his best line). Ratzenberger is easily the highlight of the film and I can't believe it took Pixar to keep casting him in stuff. The man knows how to deliver a line (even he couldn't save Motel Hell, though).
There's a lot of convoluted mumbo jumbo about how a crystal skull can give someone eternal life and there's a bunch of historical time periods that pop up in rooms of the house to try to get the skull back. Gramps is wacky and fun-loving and the type of old person The Simpsons make fun of. There's really nothing in common with House except that they both take place in a house. House II isn't scary and I don't really think it's meant to be. It's an adventure movie, which is fine, except the subtitle "The Second Story" not only implies it's going to be the same house, but a continuation of the first story. You may enjoy it more knowing that it's nothing like the original, but realizing that killed House II for me.
That's right. This one isn't really called House III. It's The Horror Show, and a more unoriginal, unappealing name couldn't be found. At least, unlike House II, this one isn't a sequel or even a part of the series, but because it features a house that gets haunted (kind of), it was billed as a sequel in foreign markets. Gone are the Cheers cast members and the humor. Instead we have Lance Henriksen, normally awesome but not here, as a cop who is tortured by a man he caught and was eventually electrocuted (in a pretty cool scene). Once again, a man with a traumatic past is haunted by something in it, but this haunting isn't confined to a House. This film actually owes a lot to the Nightmare on Elm Street Series, especially through the finale. There's lots of "is this real" stuff and a lot of bad guy quipping. It's humorous that it feels like one Wes Craven creation since the story of an electrocuted man come back to kill is exactly the same as Craven's Shocker released the same year (and, oh yes, that is A.D. Skinner himself, Mitch Pileggi).
I don't get movies like this where the bad guy seems to have control as to whether he comes back as a ghost or not. Isn't there punishment in the afterlife? Plus, the explanation for how to kill him is completely absurd. Electricity turned him into a ghost, so it will bring him back? At the very least, The Horror Show has some tension, which is more than I can say about House II. There's a little homage to Videodrome which I didn't understand until I learned that the director views David Cronenberg as a mentor. The film is a mess with little making sense in the end. Not scary enough for a horror film. Not bad enough to laugh at.
Four Houses, four houses. Roger Cobb is back, which is silly because the House series has no connecting tissue and because if we're bringing Cobb back, why not send him to the original house instead of one we've never encountered before (though we get a glimpse of what is supposed to be the original swimming pool). Even worse, he has a daughter instead of a son and a new wife. So, maybe he didn't get back together with his wife at the end of the first. And maybe she has the son. We're not even going to mention that there is a past? Then why include him at all? Nothing in the story needs Roger Cobb to return except to make the film seem related to the original. It's horseshit.
Once again, the house is... kind of haunted? There's some Native American mysticism that I can't figure out because for some reason the house attacks Cobb's wife even though it should be happy because she's keeping the house. There's an evil step-brother who wants to develop the property (what a hackneyed and cliched plot point). There's a really weird midget in a wheelchair who hacks up a lot of phlegm and is out of a different movie completely (I almost want to say David Lynch's Dune). For some reason, the FBI are involved in this house. There are no monsters. Still no humor. I don't know why you bring William Katt back at all if there's going to be no relation in theme or story to the original aside from trying to hook viewers. Honestly, there are only two good aspect about this movie and they is the bug and snake costumes. The rest is horseshit.
So, there you go. Four movies, unrelated, yet part of the same series. It's a lesson in brand management, I guess, except I don't know how high the House stock ever got. Check out the first, leave the rest.
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