Halloween Horror Watch #22: The Haunting of Hell House

The Haunting of Hell House -- Mitch Marcus



The Haunting of Hell House feels like it was a paycheck for everyone in the cast and crew. I learned a long time ago not to judge these people for taking a paycheck, but that's what this is. The only thing I hate more than a bad movie is a movie with no ambition at all (not mutually exclusive). The Haunting of Hell House is bland. I toyed around with the idea of writing "meh," and leaving it be. Maybe I should have.

I feel like an emerging theme of these Halloween Horror Watches is to stay away from Roger Corman productions after 1985, or at least to tread lightly (after all, Slumber Party Massacre II came out in 1987). The most interesting thing about The Haunting of Hell House is that, viewed after Castle Freak, it offers the flip side of Castle Freak's mother-takes-her-anger-out-on-her-son plot point. Not all that interesting. Meh...

As Exciting As Watching Someone Fish: Island of the Fishmen

I was planning on writing a big introduction about how through the '60s and '70s, classic actors were taking roles in genre movies that at an earlier point in their career would seem beneath them. But the research aspect of the project was becoming daunting. Certainly for something relatively few will read. Sure, Donald Pleasance was in The Great Escape, but he'd also been playing genre roles for much of his career. Bela Legosi started in the classic Universal world and ended his career with Ed Wood. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford seemed to discover that the only place aging actresses fit in anymore was in horror movies. There are the types like Betsy Russell who dismissed the horror movies they were in, but needed the paycheck. But the problem I faced was that I couldn't think of that many movies that reflected Island of the Fishmen, and Italian production, that featured Joseph Cotten even though I know the scenario was common (Cotten, if you'll remember, stars in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons as well as Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt). I know there were loads of these type of actors who were in some of the all-time classics popping up in relative schlock but I just can't think of any off the top of my head. Please enlighten me in the comments if you have more examples (I also wanted to draw parallels to the way so many actors today got their starts in horror movies from the '70s and '80s, but this whole project was way to ambitious for a simple horror write-up).

My main reason for wanting to do all that here is that I don't have much to say about Island of the Fishmen. It's a pretty unremarkable movie with little style or interest. The main influence appears to be The Island of Dr. Moreau but without the interest. There's some bullshit about Atlantis and gold. A blandly villainous bad guy who is basically a caricature of wealthy bad guys (though the part is acted pretty well by Richard Johnson). Barbara Bach looks nice with little to do and Joseph Cotten looks old with even less to do. There's a volcano erupting, voodoo rituals, some fun miniatures and a cool cave set, and men in fish-like costumes. I wish there was more to discuss, but Island of the Fishmen is basically a bland genre outing.

Here's the Italian trailer:


And the American release featuring zero footage from the actual movie:

Not to Be Confused with Tremors 4: The Burrowers

I've been waiting to encounter a movie that I didn't really have much to say about. The Burrowers is a fine movie and I would never tell anyone not to watch it, but it just didn't give me much to think about story-wise or message-wise. It's an hour and half horror Western. Think The Searchers but instead of the Comanche killing the family and taking the girl, our protagonists assume Indians were responsible for the massacre and pursue them (I believe it's the Utes in The Burrowers) instead of the creatures that live underground. Maybe the moral of The Burrowers is "Never assume because it makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.'"



Lost fans will be happy to see William Mapother in a major role. Genre fans will be excited to see Clancy Brown because Clancy Brown is awesome in everything and should be a huge star (and was also on Lost, come to think of it). There are times when The Burrowers does feel like an epic Western with impressive shots of people riding horses across the prairies and appropriately sweeping music playing. The movie loses that a bit towards the end, but it was nice to look at, though the whole look of the movie suffers from post-production tampering (why can't people just get the lighting right when they shoot it? This post-production color alteration must stop). Along similar lines, it may be easier to create CG monsters and use CG gore, but it looks terrible! Doesn't anyone care about the craft? There are methods that have been in place for 30 years that yield better results than crappy CG.

Even at 96 minutes, The Burrowers feels long. I attribute it to the fact that Clancy Brown leaves the film about halfway through and we're left without his awesome presence for the rest. There's a a sense that we're just running over the same old ground. Perhaps if the viewer was kept in the dark about what was really going on so we're trying to figure things out while the characters are the film would have had a stronger hook. As it stands... meh.