The House of Seven Corpses

In THE HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES, a film crew attempts to shoot a horror movie involving seven mysterious deaths. They happen to be filming in the very house where the actual deaths occurred.

Uh oh!

A book of spells is found, and they decide to use it in their movie. Big mistake! Bad things start happening almost immediately: A cat is mutilated, turning into a sock puppet, and the book's mumbo jumbo causes the cold inhabitants of the nearby cemetery to stir!

This all culminates in the best part of the movie when a ghoul goes on a killing rampage. The last 20 minutes are pretty good, but the rest is a grueling slog.

John Ireland stars as the cranky director, Faith Domergue is the cranky actress, and John Carradine plays the cranky old caretaker.

Recommended, strictly for the macabre finale...

...but I've seen better too.

The story here is predictable--a film crew trying to film a horror movie in a place where murders occurred. Three guesses what happens. This isn't a total bomb--the cast is fairly good with pros John Ireland, Faith Domergue and John Carradine giving the best performances. It's reasonably well-made--for a low budget film. Just don't expect any nudity, swearing, blood OR gore (the film has a very mild PG rating). I was never totally bored--it's OK viewing on a quiet night. I saw it on video--it was a HORRIBLE print--very dark and some scenes were impossible to see. Still I didn't hate it and it does have a cool ending which surprised me--basically nothing happens up till then so it catches you off guard. Worth seeing but only if you're a horror film completest.

I am honestly confused by most of these reviews and comments. There is nothing really THAT BAD about this film. It plays like an extended version of an episode of "Night Gallery." There is obvious comparisons to "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and other genre films but this film really doesn't belong in those categories. I am a fan of the 70's horror genre and did not expect much when I sat down to re-watch this film after twenty years. (DID NOT EXPECT MUCH-GOT THAT!) I would not call it boring or confusing. Too many people enjoy writing overly critical reviews of movies that were never intended to be masterpieces. Too many reviewers also feel the need to compare all movies to each other rather than seeing them for what they are really worth individually. In all of it's "stiffness" this film is still more entertaining than the CGI crap Hollywood dumps on the public in 2008!

How do you not like a film that has seven murders while the opening credits are rolling? Even the fact that the director write many episodes of the Saturday morning kids show H.R. PUFNSTUF does not detract from the fun (remember that DUNGEON OF HARROW was directed by the man who drew "Howard The Duck"). The film-within-a-film idea was used to great advantage in FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (will someone please release that to DVD in widescreen?) and it works rather well here too. John Ireland is the hard boiled director making a movie about witchcraft in a spooky old house (actually the former Utah governor's mansion) whose owners have all died mysteriously and whose last tenant was a real life witch. John Carradine is Edgar Price, the caretaker who knows the whole family history and is not shy about interrupting filming when Ireland gets it wrong. Faith Domergue (THIS ISLAND EARTH) is the tempermental movie star who seems to be Ireland's now-and-then lover. Also on hand is Charles MacCauley, best remembered as Dracula from the blaxploitation classic BLACULA as a drunken has been whose career is well past its twilight. The action gets a little confusing near the end. We know that a zombie rises from its grave because Ms. Domergue has read a magic chant from the Tibetan Book Of The Dead (conveniently located on a bookshelf) but what happens with Mr. Ireland and a crew member named David is likely to get you wondering "Huh?". Like, is there one zombie or two, and if there are two where does the first one disappear to and other nagging little things like that. Don't let it spoil your fun though, this film is worth seeing. nobody panders to the outrageous plot, everyone turns in a good performance. John Ireland gets the most unforgettable line. About to spirit Ms. Domergue to his bedroom Ireland's romantic plans are sunk when she insists on searching for her lost cat. Handcuffed by the PG rating Ireland barks "FRITZ the cat!" and stomps out of the scene. Fun, and lots of it.

Attempting to shoot a horror movie on a cursed location where the real life murders they're emulating occurred, a film crew accidentally conjures a deformed being that slowly begins killing them off one-by-one.

A slightly disappointing but overall quite creepy effort, this one really could've been great with the fixing of a few minor details. The main issue at hand here is the remarkably slow-paced offering, as there's just hardly anything going on but the movie shoot for the entire running time in the first hour, leaving this to rely on it's other efforts to work but basically doesn't even get started with it's killing until the hour mark or even making any mention of the killer until then and it causes the film to go along quite slowly. This is the most disturbing feature since the rest of the film is quite nice, with a large Victorian house serving as the basis for both the film and the movie being shot there giving off an incredible atmosphere, the slow-building set-up making for a chilly time and the rampage by the decomposing corpse being quite bloody and enjoyable, but overall it's just really hurt by it's slow set-up.

Rated R: Violence and Language.