Friday the 13th veterans Steven Miner and Sean Cunningham take the directorial reigns and production credits respectively in House, a lukewarm Vietnam/haunted house horror comedy. Though the filmmakers attempt positing something of substance, their indiscretion in regards to the “if’s” and “when’s” of juxtaposing the film’s horrific elements to its slapstick comedic breaks severs the pace of this trademark 1980s production, all to a disappointing ends.
After his son, Jimmy (Mark Silver), mysteriously disappears while visiting his Great Aunt Elizabeth (Susan French), Roger Cobb (William Katt) relentlessly searches for the missing child, his devotion to which leads to his wife, Sandy Sinclair (Kay Lenz), filing for divorce. When Elizabeth commits suicide, Roger moves into the abandoned mansion seeking solitude in hopes of reorganizing his life, the primary concern of which being meeting the clause in his writing contract which stipulates he must produce a new novel by the end of the month or reimburse his publisher the advance. Roger decides to shift from his wildly popular pulp horror fiction in order to focus upon his experiences in Vietnam. However, the Cobb house seems to have other plans for the struggling writer.
Miner gives us a thinly veiled voyage narrative with Roger–famed author of Blood Drive, a wildly popular, Stephen King-esque horror novel–attempting to reconcile himself with his past after having been victim to the jungles of Vietnam (where he was unable to bring himself to put his follow soldier, Big Ben (Richard Moll), out of his misery, which lead to the latter’s subsequent capture), the disappearance and presumed death of his son, a divorce, and the recent suicide of his aunt. However, between the two main storylines, that of the Cobb house’s paranormal status and Roger’s flashbacks of the war, we almost lose interest in the potentially intriguing psychological question of whether or not the author is truly insane or if the house is indeed haunted. Unfortunately, midway through the film, Miner and Co. unwisely resolve this narrative strand (the only one of consequence) when Roger’s neighbor, Harold Gorton (George Wendt), reels back in fear as a monster jumps out from an upstairs closet, thus answering the question of the stability of the protagonist’s mental state (unless we want to really suspend disbelief and humor the notion that Roger’s influence over George has saturated his neighbor to the point of mass hysteria).
Yes, we have the main action of a haunted house tale where a man is literally haunted by his memories taking place in the metaphorical enclosures of the subconscious, i.e. the closet, all amid a residence which is larger on the inside than out (years before Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves), but the poor acting, lackadaisical special effects, and very dated feel to the film (second only to the Sleepaway Camp series as cinematic figureheads to the decade as Silver appears in a V-neck sweater that would have only been tolerated during the Reagan Era), that even a line like, “Solitude’s always better with someone else around” via George almost goes unnoticed.
Of historical interest, House’s storyline and visuals harp of Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist by way of a dose of the Gothic American master, H.P. Lovecraft. This, atop the note that the work has a very Evil Dead II feel to it–a year before Sam Raimi’s cult sequel appeared–graciously lends interest to this otherwise piecemeal effort.
Not even a line-up of actors from the great late night sitcoms of the 1980s–“Cheers” and “Night Court”–could force Steven Miner’s House into a cohesive whole (not to imply that performers from this decade inherently carried with them narrative adhesive, but such a non sequitur aligns itself with the sensibilities of the work). As a consequence, House, a film full of ideas which are never fully fleshed out, leaves the viewer tepid in the wake of what should have been a very satisfactory horror comedy which brings together the stunningly disassociated themes of Vietnam, laughs, and horror to a very entertaining, enjoyable degree by way of the big screen.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
