Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘You’ve seen way too many horror movies’
Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse takes the creepy girl, creepy doll, creepy nursery rhyme approach to horror.
#nursery rhyme music#
Then, having gorily dispensed with the girl’s parents,
jumps ahead 20 years to ham radio enthusiast Paul who hears what sounds like a murder on his set,
‘Somebody help me, Help Help'
#scream#
With his girlfriend Martha, he takes the logical course of action,
‘We’ve got to find that radio, a crime could have been committed’
I don’t mean logical, do I? that would be calling this police.
The moronic course of action.
‘It’s depressing – there’s something evil about the house’
They find the abandoned house where the signal is coming from and the owner of the set.
'We're here on vacation, my camper is parked out in the yard, I'm here with my brother his girlfriend, our sister Tina is with us too.'
Who for some reason imparts his life story to the total strangers he found messing with his stuff.
‘It doesn’t make any sense though’
This man sounds like the victim of the radio.
‘That was your voice though, you can’t deny that’
Meanwhile Martha goes exploring and is horrified to discover that someone left the laundry on.
What could it all mean?
‘It’s like something terrible happened here’
What an astonishingly spot on guess.
‘I just feel like we’re in some kind of danger and we’ve got to do something’
Leave?
‘We’ve got to get to the bottom of this’
Despite having just met, the two groups join to figure out the mystery of the place where they think they’re in some kind of danger.
‘What do you think’ll happen?’
Well if I was a betting man I’d say you’ll split up for no reason.
‘Listen, you stay here. I’m going downstairs to take a look’
Not liking this guy’s chances.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’
or his acting.
And now what Paul heard on the radio comes to pass in real life.
‘Somebody help me, help, help'
#scream#
How did their plan go wrong?
‘We got separated’
Yeah, that’s what happened. You won’t make that mistake again.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay with her.’
‘Come on Mark, let’s go’
You stay here with the girl whose brother just died, she’s probably pretty stable.
‘Lock yourself inside the camper, don’t open the door for any reason’
Yeah right.
Now, in many ways you can’t go wrong with a creepy girl, creepy doll, creepy nursery rhyme;
I don’t why these things are scary, they just are.
But if you go outside the purely creepy.
It’s just when Muppets attack.
'Nothing's gonna happen.'
‘This is getting boring’
The first half of the film is not great, but...
‘I’ve just got the feeling the worst is yet to come’
Under police order – yes, they finally called them – Paul and Martha leave with the others to follow shortly.
‘We’ll be gone in a couple of hours, all we have to do is pack up’
Back in Boston Paul reads up on the supernatural.
‘I checked out this book while you were in the shower’
He creates a computer program to identify the words in the nursery rhyme.
'The simple fct that the computer doesn't know prooves that I am right.'
But this obsession tells his relationship and
‘You know something, I’ve had enough; goodbye’
Meanwhile...
The others haven’t left yet. All the stuff that’s happened to Paul and Martha, not to mention an ongoing police investigation...
‘Well I’ve done the autopsy’
Occurs in less than two hours.
Presumably a lot less because Paul and Martha get back together – in some unspecified fashion – and take another investigatory roadtrip.
And...
Okay, engine trouble has delayed them but the bottom line is...
the Paul, Martha &police stuff is written as if it takes weeks, but because of these guys, we know it’s all 1 day.
‘I’m just afraid they’re still at that damned house,
'and if they are they’re in real danger, they’ve got to get out of there right away’
The reason for this is that the story needs them to stay at the house,
cos obviously more people are going to die,
but there’s no earthly reason for them to stay.
The police would’ve cordoned it off and the girl whose brother died should be in counselling.
But instead...
She falls foul of the guillotine in the playroom, because by this point the film has given up on believable ways to kill people.
‘That’s all nonsense’
There’s a lot wrong here.
‘It’s all one big horrible mess’
This guy is stabbed with a pitchfork.
‘It’s alright I’ll be okay’
and he will, never mentions it, and it never impairs his movement in any way.
Plus in the initial murders we see this mummified hand...
which shows up again later...
No idea who it belongs to.
For all this there might be enough creep to get by were it not for the people it’s happening to.
‘But it did happen’
The biggest problem is that the characters fail to convince as human beings.
‘That was Jim.’
‘Incredible, just like the other night’
It’s not just the acting.
‘The hell was that’
It’s not helping, but it’s not just that. It’s the dialogue.
‘Something really weird happened last night’
the absent chemistry.
‘Keep yourself hot too’
and that everything they do feels like a story requirement rather than a decision an actual person would make.
‘He’s still in here, I just know it’
In many ways, the doll is the best realised character.
Thanks for watching.
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'I just want to get out of here.'