The Bride

ALWAYS take your wedding vows seriously. That is the lesson that David (Arthur Roberts, "Revenge of the Ninja") needs to learn in this low budget combination of psychological and supernatural horror. David is set to marry Barbara (soap opera veteran Robin Strasser), daughter of a very rich man (John Beal, "Amityville 3-D"), but the guy has no shame. He fools around with a former girlfriend (Iva Jean Saraceni, "Creepshow") on his wedding day! Barbara promptly blows her top and drives off. The old man, despite his hatred of David, does warn him that his little girl (one of those spoiled princesses who tended to get everything she wanted) has a tendency to be vindictive and VIOLENT. Soon, David and the girlfriend are being terrorized repeatedly.

"The House That Cried Murder" (a.k.a. "The Bride" and "Last House on Massacre Street") is no lost gem begging for rediscovery, but it IS a pretty entertaining regional genre flick with the appropriate amount of surrealism. It also features a remarkable looking house, some okay atmosphere, a variable music score (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), and a fair amount of gore. Director Jean-Marie Pelissie (who wrote the script with producer John Grissmer) generates some scares and suspense along the way, leading to a solid finale with some surprises in store for David (and, hopefully, the viewer). As you can see, David is not exactly a sympathetic character, but the dilemma that faces him and the girlfriend IS compelling.

All in all, this minor but diverting feature is still worth seeking out for genre fans who always look for lesser-known entries like this.

Filmed in Connecticut.

Seven out of 10.

"The Bride" follows a vengeful young woman whose husband cheats on her on their wedding day with an ex-flame. The bride disappears, but her beau and his recent indiscretion find their lives tormented.

Written by John Grissmer, who later directed the offbeat thriller "Scalpel" (1977) and the utterly bonkers gorefest "Blood Rage" (1987), "The Bride" is a swift, surreal, and all-around entertaining horror flick that is very much of its era. While it was obviously a low-budget effort, there is some fantastic cinematography on display, and a jarring guitar-based score that amps up the proceedings.

While the film excels visually, its budget limitations instead show themselves in the sparseness of the plot and the overall short runtime (barely an hour and fifteen minutes). There are really only a handful of scenes and settings, and four characters, so it's a small affair (no pun intended); it seems like the production attempted to stretch the material as far as they could with what they had. While I think the plot the could have been thickened up a bit, there are still a handful of twists and turns packed into the swift runtime. Future soap star Robin Strasser plays the lead unhinged bride with audacious flair, while John Beal understatedly potrays her wealthy father. The other two actors portraying the groom and his ex-girlfriend are also solid. The finale of the film is well-done, and there is some truly nightmarish cinematography inside the half-finished estate that the titular bride was building for herself and her lover.

All in all, "The Bride" is a sturdy, small film that is effective in its conciseness. There is not a lot to it, but the filmmakers make off well with what is there. It's similar in tone to another short, low-budget horror flick from the era: 1977's "Axe." An appreciable, genuinely weird film. 7/10.

This came as a huge surprise to me. The movie is great!! Love the characters,story,directing and score. The little twist we get in the 3rd act is the best part!! Definitely worth a watch.

A rich man's daughter Barbara marries David,one of her dad's employees.She built herself a rather strange looking house on the field.During the wedding David kisses his former girlfriend Helen.Freshly married Barbara sees love-making session,stabs David's arm with a pair of scissors and flees in her bloody bridal gown.Strange things begin to happen for example Barb finds decapitated head of a chicken on her pillow and David has ghastly nightmares."The House That Cried Murder" is an overlooked psychological horror with several creepy scenes.The soundtrack is pretty bad with one of the worst wedding bands ever captured on screen,but the climax is wonderfully eerie and bizarre."The House That Cried Murder" deserves to be seen.8 out of 10.

I saw this film under the very promising title of The Last House on Massacre Street, which automatically brought to mind gritty grindhouse classics like Last House On The Left, The Last House on Dead End Street, and The Last House on The Beach, and the more recent The Last House in the Woods. Unfortunately, the movie proved to be far from the gruelling shocker I had hoped it would be: instead, I got a film that is 90% psychological and 10% supernatural, but only 50% entertaining, the action suffering from some serious pacing issues, a lack of scares, a dearth of blood and guts, and a twist ending that, while fun, seems more suited to an episode of Tales From The Crypt than a full length movie.

The film opens with a young couple, David and Barbara (Arthur Roberts and Robin Strasser), paying a visit to the house that Barbara built, the building to become their home once they are married. But their future together doesn't go quite as planned when, on their wedding day, Barbara catches her new husband getting it on with his ex-girlfriend Ellen (Iva Jean Saraceni); wigging out, Babs wounds David with some scissors and then drives off in a rage. In the following weeks, David shacks up with Ellen, but the pair are menaced by mysterious phone calls and sinister events.

Director Jean-Marie Pélissié conjures up some reasonable atmosphere, making particularly good use of Barbara's sprawling unfinished house in the film's finalé, but other scenes seriously drag, especially the wedding reception, which goes on and on (coming second only to The Deer Hunter as The Most Boring Wedding Party Scene in the History of Cinema). Some gnarly violence would definitely have helped to shake things up a bit, but all we get is a decapitated chicken and a lame axe attack, making it the least exploitative 'Last House' movie of them all.