'Where the hell are we?'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘To hell with the drinks let’s have an orgy.’
This week we’re entering the Haunted House of Horror.
#Wierd moans and banging... getting louder... maybe a ghost...#
#that may actually be sex noises - or exercise noises#
Maybe we’ll come back later.
This film is the definition of a troubled production, many scripts, many changes, much interference,
we’re just reviewing it as it stands.
So, a group of happening young things are at a 60s party.
‘The epitome of swinging London itself’
But they’re not having the best time.
‘I am bored. I just wish something would happen’
‘Listen, hasn’t anyone got any ideas?’
‘I know this old house’
How bad is this party?
‘All I know is it’s supposed to be haunted’
So they head to an isolated old house, the site of some grisly murders.
‘The killer is supposed to be the ghost.’
But what to do?
'Lets have a seance.'
‘What do you fancy, an orgy or a séance?’
They make the wrong choice.
Don’t people usually say something in seances?
All those ghosts on the other side waiting for the usual game of charades,
I’m getting the letter B and the number 12, like supernatural Sesame Street
and they do nothing. Never the less.
'What's that?'
As is the done thing the group split up, to search for whatever is walking about in the house of way too many doors…
and...
#Oh no, he got paint all over himself.#
One thing I should clarify, it’s more than 20 minutes before they reach the house
another 15 before the séance, so its 40 minutes before the first death
which would be fine if the time was being used to set up characters and relationships that underpin the narrative,
but it’s mostly time wasted.
‘I’m fed up with this’
Major problem. And not the last one.
'What are we going to do?'
‘We’re going to search this house methodically from top to bottom.’
That would really be the job of the police.
‘Nobody’s gonna go running off or running to the police, we gotta figure this out for ourselves.’
Why?
‘Are you suggesting one of us did it’
That’s exactly what he’s suggesting and for one reason.
‘Richard are you absolutely sure no one could get in or out of this place without using the front door?'
'You saw yourself there is no way out.'
The speed they gloss over this suggests that someone knew how ridiculous it is.
‘And who are you calling ridiculous?’
I think it was Frankie Avalon.
This whole movie hinges on the fact that no one could possibly get into an old house
and that if there was someone in there when they arrived,
there’s no way they could leave.
Simply impossible.
‘It’s too ridiculous!’
One would think, but that’s what they’re going with.
So the killer is one of them.
‘You must be completely mad, I’m going for the police.’
‘Oh no you’re not, your going to sit down and shut up.’
My money’s on the one who keeps stopping them from contacting the police.
So what now?
‘We get rid of the body’
'It's the only thing we can do, it's our only chance.'
They decide to cover it up altogether.
‘Can you think of anything better?’
Could have used that opening 40 minutes to establish why they’re so afraid of the police.
‘If we go to the police. I mean last time… with that drugs thing.’
That’ll cover it.
Having hidden the corpse of their friend, they then leave and just get back to normal life,
knowing one of them is a killer.
‘The only thing that’s real is that one of us did it, but who? Which one?’
So this is kind of ‘I know What You Did Last Swinging Summer’
‘Everybody suspects everybody else, now she suspects me’
We now meet the police inspector, played by Dennis Price,
in a role intended for Boris Karloff.
‘Well if you put it like that I can hardly refuse can I?’
Who is actually drug squad, so already knows these kids.
‘We got done in that drug bust’
Nice idea. In the meantime.
This was an ex-sugar Daddy of one the girls,
and stuff like this hints at what the script was going to be before being buried in horror clichés and people doing silly things.
‘I want to tell the police what happened’
A month has now passed but sure. Unless someone has a dumber idea.
‘We could go back to the house and search it’
‘We did’
‘I mean really search it’
So that concrete certainty that no one else was there,
that’s had you all terrified of each other for the last month.
‘Sheila, why d’you keep running away’
that’s based on a pretty perfunctory search.
So, I guess I can see the logic, but somehow it changes from ‘let’s search the place’ to...# ‘So we do recreate what happened the other night’ ‘Let’s re-enact events’ for reasons I cannot even begin to understand. It’s going well so far. ‘Should never have come back here’No. But I’m sure it was worth it for that thorough search. And the ending is largely unforeshadowed. ‘I can kill them here’ and makes little sense because
‘So we do recreate what happened the other night’
‘Let’s re-enact events’ for reasons I cannot even begin to understand.
It’s going well so far.
‘Should never have come back here.’
No. But I’m sure it was worth it for that thorough search.
And the ending is largely unforeshadowed.
‘I can kill them here’
and makes little sense because, who was walking about during the séance?
Also worth noting the homosexual subtext that’s been reduced to a suggestive knife.
There’s just enough in the criss-crossing relationships to see how this might have worked as cultural satire.
‘Dorothy’s downstairs waiting for me and we’re supposed to be together.’
If free love is just an acceptable excuse for infidelity, what happens when the dream goes go bad?
Who can you trust?
‘Don’t you trust me?’ ‘No.’
But, that stuff doesn’t really figure in the plot.
‘I’m not the linen, you know! You can’t change me when you feel like it.’
Maybe there was a version of this script that worked, but what you get onscreen is unmotivated stupidity.
‘You look bored.’ ‘You guessed right.’
Alongside such stultifying boredom that it’s like being slowly engulfed in wet cement.
Well I can't stand this much longer.'
Thanks for watching. For another old dark house story check out my latest book,
there’s a link in the description below.
What horror films double as portraits of a time? Shit!
What horror films double as portraits of a time? Capturing an era.
Let us known in the comments below.
'Argh, theres no light.'