The Horrible House on the Hill

I found this movie disturbing. Young girl putting a piranha in a woman's bathtub, while the others hold her down. The sheer frustration of the triumph of evil over good. The hopelessness of fighting an evil that outsmarts you every turn, with no weapons either. I had to stay up a while after seeing this movie. I just found it disturbing.

Devil Times Five is basically your basic seventies horror flick about a bunch of people in an isolated location being terrorised by psychos; except this one has a twist, and that twist comes in the form of the psychos themselves being young children. The most famous film to use the idea of psychotic children is probably the 1960 classic Village of the Damned; but it has been done many times since. Devil Times Five is perhaps something of an oddity within the genre as it doesn't particularly focus on the idea of the children being psychos, but instead puts its focus on the sleazy adult characters and gory death scenes. The plot focuses on a group of people staying at a snowbound lodge. Meanwhile, a bus carrying a group of psychotic children slips off the road; allowing the kids to escape. After taking out their guardian, the kids descend on the lodge where they are taken in by the people staying there. Shortly thereafter, the adults start turning up dead...

The film is a real piece of seventies grindhouse with the main focus being on the sleazy atmosphere. Immediately we are shown that not all of the main characters are angels and it sets things up nicely. Often horror films involving kids will be toned down a little; but that's not the case here either. The kids themselves are vicious enough and that is complimented nicely by a grisly set of death scenes that include things such as a woman in a bath being eaten by piranhas, someone being set alight and a vast assortment of mêlée weapons being put to good use. The snow setting provides a good location for the action to take place as it provides a good atmosphere of isolation to ensure we're always aware that the central characters are in trouble. It does have to be said that the film can't really be taken seriously; it's not particularly well written or acted and the story has no depth whatsoever - but it's not important anyway for a seventies horror flick and the film does provide ninety minutes that are worth seeing.

This is one of them seventies horror films your grandfather would tell you about while settling you down to sleep when you were a toddler. Five crazy kids escape from a mental institution and play the scared kid card at the house of Papa Doc, who is currently playing host to all sorts of unlikeable adults, so, basically, you can tell where this is heading. What got me about the Devil Times Five is the way that the first hour passes almost lightheartedly, before heading for Grimsville. When the kids start wasting the cast, a kind of darkness settles on the film and never let's up. I don't know if it's just the playful way the kids massacre people (hence the title: Peopletoys), but I was left with a bizarre bad taste in my mouth after watching this. I guess that's the whole point though. You don't really get that from watching modern splatterfests. This is seventies horror in a nutshell, this film.

Plus, for UK viewers, check the name of one of the producers of this film (the IMDb won't let me use his second name here). I bet he's glad he didn't go to school in Glasgow!

Over the years, many writers as well as filmmakers discovered that seemly innocent and cherubic looking children make extra-creepy horror villains! Demonic kids almost form an entire sub genre of horror by themselves! There usually is an explanation for their abnormal and murderous behavior, though. Either it's the influence of a satanic cult ("Children of the Corn"), a nuclear meltdown ("The Children of Ravensbeck"), a temporary blackout caused by a comet ("Village of the Damned") or even an ordinary solar eclipse on the day of their birth ("Bloody Birthday"). The youthful maniacs in this film have no real excuse for what they do. They were just born evil. And when their bus to the mental institute crashes down atop some snowy mountains, they become youthful maniacs AT LARGE! They make it to a holiday resort where some wannabe godfather Corleone runs his crime syndicate and they start killing all the residents. "Devil Times Five" is not a very good movie, but that's mainly due to a lack of budget and a shortage of talented cast & crew members. There's very little going on in the first hour, apart from a spectacular bus crash and THE longest murder of an institute employee (filmed in slow-motion). When approaching the last third of the film, the creepy moments and gory murders begin to follow each other at fast pace and the atmosphere really gets morbid. The adults are all pitiful and uninteresting characters but the five kids have quite interesting backgrounds. The oldest girl pretends to be a young convent sister, another girl is obsessed with fire and the funny black kid constantly acts like he's in the army. Their incontrollable urge to slaughter unknown people is a bit difficult to believe at times, but overall these young actors do a terrific job. "Devil Times Five" is recommended 70's exploitation, with a fairly high cult-value and several unforgettable murder scenes (piranhas in the bathtub!!)

This is a good little quirky horror-thriller set in a snow-bound area. A family gather in a house for a winter break, while at the same time a bus carrying some kids crashes off the road. Five of the children escape unharmed but it turns out these are seriously disturbed kids and they are soon to come into contact with our friends in the holiday home.

Devil Times Five is a strange little movie. It sometimes gives off the relaxed and warm feel of a 70's TV movie but this is misleading as its subject matter of sociopathic children is not exactly a very cosy theme. This combination of TV-style melodrama with slasher movie subject matter is one of the things that makes for distinctive viewing. It's just a little bizarre. The snowy setting is good too and gives the flick a nice feel. The murders are all varied and occasionally quite inventive such as the bath tub demise replete with piranhas. Admittedly, the first murder is a pretty confusing affair – not only do we have trouble knowing what is going on but it's not even that clear who is even being attacked! But it's still a pleasingly weird scene with slow motion visuals and sound, and through a monochrome lens. Aside from all this, the movie is not above throwing in a totally unnecessary cat fight too. And what could be wrong with that? You could do a lot worse than this one. If you are a sucker for early 70's proto-slashers then this is one that should provide some entertainment.