Deadly Manor

Six youths on their way to an elusive lake in upstate New York pick up a dubious hitchhiker and are eventually compelled to stay at a remote, dilapidated mansion in the sticks. Will they make it out alive?

"Deadly Manor" (1990) combines 80's slasher with spooky house à la "Hell Night" (1981). Coming out ten years after the seminal "Friday the 13th," it's rather late in the game but fans of those movies and "Tourist Trap" (1979), "The Funhouse" (1981), "The Prowler" (1981), "Frightmare" (1983), "Zombie High" (1987) and "Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil" (1991) should appreciate it even though it ranks with the least of em'. Like "Slugs" (1988), it's a Spanish production shot in the USA.

Some critics understandably complain that the going is slow but, despite some dubious make-up at the end, I felt the flick works up some nice spookiness, as well as some quality mystery in regards to what's going on at the remote, rundown manor. Clark Tufts stands out in the cast as Jack, looking like a rock star.

The female cast consists of Claudia Franjul (Helen), Liz Hitchler (Susan) and Kathleen Patane (Anne), but the highlight is Jennifer DeLora, who shows up around the midway mark. Speaking of whom, she appears nude in one sequence, as well as in photos. There's additional overt nudity involving several bike enthusiasts, mostly in the form of old photos. Just a heads up.

The film runs 1 hour, 26 minutes, and was shot at Hillburn Manor, a derelict 100-year-old mansion in Suffern, New York, that was demolished after the film was shot in five weeks around September, 1989. Suffern is located about 40 minutes north of Manhattan near the border of northeastern New Jersey.

GRADE: B-

"Deadly Manor" was José Ramón Larraz's final stab at the slasher movie following 1988's "Edge of the Axe," and this offering has a different flavor to it, and is perhaps more bizarre. It follows a group of young people who, for no legitimate reason, decide to stay the night at an abandoned mansion in the woods. Outside is a wrecked car converted into a shrine, and photos of a beautiful woman are pasted on the walls throughout the house. Of course, they start to die one by one as the night rolls on.

As is the case with most Larraz's films, "Deadly Manor" is more an exercise in atmosphere than it is anything else. The bare bones of the plot are standard and fairly unremarkable, though the finer details of it all--including the killer and motives--are a bit offbeat. The film is at its most effective when it lingers on these details, and the recurrent shots of the woman's photographs that adorn the walls are off-putting and at times notably creepy; while she is not onscreen, it instills a menacing presence.

Where the film is a bit weak is in its pacing; the film seems to lag in the middle, and works its way toward setting up a red herring that proves meaningless before the kids are hacked and slashed in a rapid-fire succession. The film does surprise in that it subverts expectation of who the hero or heroes are going to be, but the last 10 minutes ultimately feel a bit anticlimactic.

Overall, "Deadly Manor" makes for an enjoyable watch due to its atmospheric backdrop, accentuated by some very good cinematography. The film is fairly run-of-the-mill in most regards, and much less offbeat than "Edge of the Axe," but just weird enough to keep you on your toes. Especially worthwhile for fans of late '80s aesthetics. 6/10.

DEADLY MANOR (1990) 6 out of 10 stars Time to Read: 2:20 min

BASIC PLOT: A group of teenagers go to a lake to enjoy a weekend of camping. On the way, they get lost, and pick up a hitchhiker, Jack (Clark Tufts). He's about their age, and says he knows the way. Jack informs them they are still too far away to make it before dark, and they'd better find someplace to bed down for the night. Rod (Mark Irish) picks an isolated road, drives down it, and instead of finding someplace to camp, finds a giant, creepy, apparently abandoned house.

Tony (Greg Rhodes), Rod and Peter (Jerry Kernion) think they have hit the jackpot. It's starting to rain, it's supposed to be cold outside tonight, and now they'll have a warm, dry place to sleep. But Helen (Claudia Franjul) refuses to stay, saying the house feels evil, and besides, she swears she saw someone close an upstairs window. The other girls, Susan (Elizabeth Baldwin) and Anne (Kathleen Patane) also don't want to stay. It feels wrong, and it has a strange shrine to a car accident outside of it, full of blood and pictures of an alluring, redheaded woman (Jennifer Delora).

Who is this strange, redheaded woman, and why are there pictures of her all over this seemingly abandoned house? Did Helen really see someone in the window, and will the others come to regret not to listening to her more closely?

WHAT WORKS: *EXCELLENT ATMOSPHERIC The house chosen as the setting was very creepy, and in need of TLC. It was the perfect backdrop to the story.

*FANTASTIC MISDIRECTION There were lots of twists and turns, and I couldn't figure out what the actual plot was. Is it a vampire movie, is that why there are coffins in the basement? Does Tony know the mysterious redheaded woman? Is Jack involved? They did pick him up right before they found the house. I didn't know the answers to any of these questions until the very end, and that's a miracle for this type of movie.

*GOOD CAST OF CHARACTERS decent variation of characters made for a more interesting story.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *ACTING COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER It wasn't terrible for the type of movie it was, but it could have been better.

*THE KIDS ARE IN THE "TOO STUPID TO LIVE" CATEGORY If you break into a place, and there's a nutter wall, that should be your cue to leave. But not for these kids! They found shrines to car accidents, coffins in the basement, and psycho scrapbooks, and still, these kids don't know when to leave!

*THE KILLS AREN'T VERY INVENTIVE OR DISGUSTING I know that's not the point, it's about finding out who the killer is, and why he's killing, but still, the kills could have been different from one another, more bloody, and more inventive.

*GOOFS - SUSAN'S HEARTBEAT SHOWS IN BLOOD By pooling blood in the crook of Susan's neck, it moves every time her heartbeats. It shouldn't have been placed there, because it's an obvious goof.

*WHY DIDN'T THE COUPLE CLIP THE MOTORCYCLISTS WITH THEIR CAR? If your being chased by a motorcycle gang, and all they're using is their helmets to hit your car, try flicking your wheel to the left or right, and watch them kill each other, as they spill down the road. Just saying.

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *I would recommend this film. It's a great atmospheric, it keeps you guessing, and it's silly, mindless fun. Turn off your brain, and enjoy!

CLOSING NOTES: *THIS IS A LOW BUDGET HORROR MOVIE, please keep that in mind before you watch/rate it. These types of movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I HAVE NO CONNECTION TO THE FILM, or production in ANY way. This review was NOT written in full, or in part, by a bot. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews (less trolls and fanboys), and better entertainment. Hope I helped you out.

Jose Ramon Larraz was a Spanish director of horror pictures who was well known in the 1970s for his atmospheric, uniquely-shot movies like SYMPTOMS, DEVIATION, and VAMPYRES. However once his glory days were behind him he kept working through the 1980s, usually churning out cheap exploitation movies, and 1990's DEADLY MANOR is such a film. As with a number of Larraz's other productions, this one was made abroad, in New York in this instance.

The plot is entirely undistinguished and completely clichéd. Your stereotypical group of teenagers end up in an old deserted manor house which they soon discover is occupied by someone or something decidedly deadly. What follows involves your usual slasher antics as the group turn up dead in gruesome ways, one at a time. In the end the survivors have to band together to try to unmask the villain in their midst.

DEADLY MANOR is generic stuff indeed and the poor production values don't help it very much. The acting is pretty much the pits and the cinematography is very dark, inducing eye strain in the viewer. Larraz fails to bring much in the way of atmosphere to the picture and indeed he seems to have left his expertise at the door. There's a little gore and nudity on display here and I imagine most horror fans will find this film tests the patience more than anything else.

Spanish-American co-production slasher film, directed by José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres, 1974). A group of REALLY idiotic 'teens' (plus a mysterious hitchhiker) travelling through upstate New York on their way to vacation at a lake decide to stop off and spend the night in an apparently abandoned mansion. Despite finding an old, severely damaged car bizarrely parked on top of a stone monument in the grounds, as though the whole thing is some kind of a shrine, several coffins in the basement, and what appears to be a human scalp, they decide they'll stay anyway. Eventually (surprise!), one by one they start getting bumped off.

This was made in 1990; the 80s slasher boom had passed, and Scream had yet to pump new life into the genre. The first half is very slow, taking a while to get going as far as kills are concerned, the acting ranges from bad to barely passable, and the killer's motivation is ridiculous. But the location (a genuinely abandoned house, demolished soon after the shoot) is very creepy, the girls are cute (the absolutely stunning Claudia Franjul was tragically killed in real life just five years after this in a traffic accident at the age of just 24), and if throat slashings are your thing you could do worse. Some female nudity. 5/10.