I think my brain might still be fried from the traveling. Also, watching the debate. Not entirely sure about tonight’s movie but there was some good V-neck sweatering going on.

House – USA, 1986. Dir. Steve Miner, Screenplay Ethan Wiley. Starring William Katt, George Wendt.

What’s up with movies called House being really, really weird?

So somehow I made it through my childhood never seeing House. I definitely remember seeing the cover in the video store though. The skeleton hand reaching for the doorbell… Ding Dong, You’re Dead… I was terrified of that cover. Of course, that was when I thought all horror movies were supposed to be scary like The Exorcist.

Yeah, not so much here.

Dude, this movie is ridiculous. It’s possibly the most ridiculous I’ve watched so far this month. I mean, Apartment 143 is pretty ridiculous too but it takes itself way more seriously. House is much more along the lines of an Evil Dead or Troll than anything serious.

I mean, take Roger’s sweater for example. That V-neck is one of the scariest things in this movie!

This movie is so weird!

This guy, Roger, goes to live in the house that belonged to his recently deceased Aunt. He used to live there until some years before when his young son went missing while playing in the backyard. The flashback makes it seem like he may have been kidnapped but it soon becomes clear that it was really The House that did it. Anyway, Roger moves in, weird stuff starts happening, a random lady goes swimming in the pool, and then we go to Vietnam.

That all makes sense, right? No? Oh.

I love the bizarre and the humor in the horror and a lot of this movie is pretty funny. There were even one or two moments that made me go “GAH.” Out loud. And laughed quite a bit. It’s silly, it’s bizarre, and there are V-neck sweaters.

It loses a bit of steam when it slips into the Vietnam flashbacks and the ending is pretty silly. But then there is also the whole sequence with the evil Marlin and the flying garden tools to kind of make up for it.

I don’t know, I’m undecided. I loved some of, wasn’t crazy about some of the rest of it. There are some pretty cool moments. Those weird goblin monster not-ghost things are all pretty cool. This isn’t so much a Haunted House movie as it a Portal to Another World thing. I think?

So throw this one into the pile of weird 80’s horror – Evil Dead movies, Troll, The Gate. And House. They’re all pretty fun. In the end.

And hey, it’s also got this song: