The Kent M. Beeson of Western Civilization
Currently a catalog of VHS movies I'm transferring to DVD and CDs I'm ripping into digital files, accompanied by snarky, ill-informed commentary on same.
Horror House a.k.a. The Haunted House of Horror (1969, Michael Armstrong)
Excuse me, movie, but does anyone get murdered in your murder mystery? Starts off promisingly, with creepy tracking shots through the titular homestead, and the arrival of callow youths (including, for some reason, Frankie Avalon) ripe for the disemboweling. The transfer is awful, like everything is covered with the grit (and God knows what else) from the floor of a porno theater, but if my experience with Peeping Tom on film is any indication, not only does it add to the atmosphere, THAT’S JUST WHAT THE U.K. LOOKED LIKE IN THE 60S. (See also: The Sorcerers.)
But then they leave the house and we jump around to their bachelor pads and other London locales and seriously, this thing has been on in front of me for like 40m and I haven’t seen a single kill. Maybe they’re just very British murders, polite and unassuming.
