The Haunted House of Horror

Plot synopsis:
In swinging London, a group of twenty-something friends are attending a rather dull party, and they decide to gather for kicks at an old supposedly haunted mansion where one of their number used to play as a child. Among the group is American ringleader Chris, his bored partygirl girlfriend Sheila, promiscuous Sylvia who has her eye on handsome two-timing Gary, and his "good girl" date Dorothy. Also tagging along are nervous, heavy-set Madge and her sarcastic, hot-tempered boyfriend Peter, and sweet faced Richard (who suggested going to the mansion), and his friend Henry. They are all followed by Paul Kellet, Sylvia's older jealous married ex-boyfriend.
They have fun exploring the mansion, even holding a seance before separating one by one by candlelight on the moonlit night. Sylvia, frightened by the mansion, leaves and hitchhikes toward home, but Kellet hangs behind at the mansion. While all the partiers are alone, Gary is brutally knifed; his body is discovered by the panic-stricken Dorothy and the others. Since some of them have a criminal record, Chris convinces the group to leave Gary's body far from the home and to pretend that Gary left and no one knows where he went. They are all shaken by Chris' assertion that one of them must be the murderer.
During the next few weeks, the survivors are possessed by tension and guilt, and after Gary is reported missing, they are further shaken by questioning from the police. Kellet confronts Sylvia, learning that she may have lost a lighter that could link them at the mansion. He returns there where he is also killed.
Dorothy calls the survivors together to ask to confess. However, Chris convinces them to return to the house to discover who among them is the killer before they all succumb to a gruesome death. Meanwhile, Sylvia is visited by the police again, and she discloses the location of the house after learning of Kellet's disappearance. At the mansion, Dorothy becomes hysterical, prompting several of the group to depart, leaving just Chris, Sheila, and Richard. While Sheila is out of the room, Richard recounts a tale of how he was locked in a basement for three days as a child and how he has a paralyzing fear of the dark or anyone he suspects will lock him away. Despite Chris' efforts, he is also knifed and Sheila is frantically chased around the mansion. Just as Richard is about to strike, the moon goes behind a cloud, bringing about his reversion to childhood and fear of the dark, thus saving Sheila as the police arrive.

Tags: mystery, murder

Review:
However, I managed to view the film recently, under its alternate title, "The Haunted House of Horror", and I must say that I enjoyed every minute of it!
Go-go boots and mini-skirts haunt this picture more than the house itself does, and it must be said that throughout the entire movie the curvaceous Jill Haworth looks absolutely stunning (and yes, in many scenes she is wearing  mini-skirt).
Basically, the plot revolves around this girl Sheila (Haworth), her swinger beau Chris (Frankie Avalon!) and all of their groovin' swinger friends who get bored with the usual Friday night party antics in swinging London and decide to go "ghost-hunting" at an old deserted mansion in the countryside.
I won't give anything away, you'll have to see for yourself, but this baby is just amazing, from the corny dialogue: "Sheila, the way you dig blood, people'd think you're a vampire!", "You'd better watch out, darling, next time I give you a love bite!", to the swingin' sixties fashions, to the Scooby Doo antics and gory knife murders, plus a very downbeat, disturbing ending and a creepy atmosphere - you can't go wrong with this one.
The financial success of both titles (especially 'Mark', which was a huge exploitation hit) was little consolation to the tyro film-maker and he vowed to stay away from movies until he was guaranteed complete creative control.Armstrong here explains the changes made to his original concept in great detail, pointing out exactly which scenes he shot and how they would/should have fitted into his scheme of things.
The film he wanted to make - 'The Dark' - certainly sounds pretty interesting the way he tells it, and the most frustrating thing about the whole episode is that it seemed to boil down to a personality clash between him and Louis 'Deke' Hayward, AIP'S man-in-London at the time.Hayward tried to shoehorn Boris Karloff (who owed AIP one film as part of a contract) into the plot at various junctures, a ploy which Armstrong vigorously resisted, resulting in a war of wills that Hayward was destined to win.
It's fascinating to watch the film whilst Armstrong indicates continuity errors in the insert sequences and identifies the various loose ends that commemorate the residue of his original script.Its no surprise, then, that 'The Haunted House of Horror' is a bit of a mess.
I felt the same way about French Impressionism when taking art history; "BOR-RING." Boy, was I wrong.THE PLOT; A group of perpetually drink-clutching and cigarette puffing modly dressed hipsters who have obviously seen BLOW-UP decide to go have a smashing party at the local supposedly haunted manor out in the middle of nowhere.
If you're looking for shocks this probably isn't a good suggestion but it's a finely made very British film that just banks more on style instead of flying body parts.It's also kind of too bad that as the "Trivia" section hints at, the then just starting to heat up David Bowie was suggested and then rejected for a key role.
The title is a bit misleading as it makes the film out to be a haunted house movie, when in fact it's closer to the slasher genre if anything.
The Haunted House of Horror is one of those time capsule movies that was probably out of date before they finished editing it.I first saw it when I was 4 or 5 years old, It was one of the first colour horror movies that I remember seeing.
Lets put it this way, Haunted House of Horror is not a good film.
I wasn't expecting much from this one, given that I had been let down by the director's subsequent - and signature - film, the notorious MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970); I would still like to watch HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS (1983), however, which Armstrong only scripted (it was directed by Pete Walker and featured genre stalwarts Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Carradine and Sheila Keith).
As for Dennis Price, he's wasted as the investigating officer; the role, insignificant as it was, had been intended for Boris Karloff - but he was too ill to appear, and died not long afterwards.Anyway, the end result is a truly lame film full of obnoxious characters (particularly the couple that's supposed to provide comic relief), wooden acting&#8230;and pointless zooms onto the Gothic architecture of the titular house!
It was released in the U.S. as a double-bill with CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR (1968), which I watched for the very first time only a couple of days prior to this one.Writer-director Armstrong's Audio Commentary was very interesting, however, because he went into great detail about how the film was taken out of his hands by AIP (it was made in conjunction with Tigon) and changed considerably: a new director - Gerry Levy - stepped in, generally softening the characters and toning down the sex (which became practically non-existent) and violence (one bloodless killing was clearly his work), but also adding a new subplot involving an extra-marital affair between Warwick and George Sewell!
Ironically, the exact same thing happened to Armstrong on his second film (the intrusion this time around came from producer Adrian Hoven), which basically put him off directing for good - though his bad experience during the making of THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR did translate into a feature-film script, ESKIMO NELL (1975)!
Interestingly, I followed this with the only film Gerry Levy directed by himself - THE BODY STEALERS (1969) - which, being a Tigon release as well, it ended up as part of the same Box Set with THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR!
(maybe some actors that actually can act, but thats a dying breed)this movie is entertaining and fun, sure the story is thin and the middle drags a little, but it really doesn't matter..you got frankie avalon, a dark old house and some outrageous 6oties hairdos, what more can you want?.
In the highly-alliterative and genre-suggestive Haunted House Of Horror, a group of teenagers, bored with the party they're attending one evening, decide to liven things up by trooping off to a supposedly, and unsurprisingly, haunted house to conduct a seance, wherein deadly consequences soon occur.Having known little about this film for years other than its title, I found myself expecting a far different tale to the one that actually unfolded.
All the meanwhile, I found myself reasonably entertained by the look and feel of a contemporary British sixties horror, from the swinging fashions to the unbelievable amount of smoking - actor George Sewell alone gives his best cigarette acting in this film.
I give it points for casting, period novelty, and for playing a little with audience expectations to avoid predictable plot trappings, but in the end, there is nothing ultimately remarkable about Haunted House Of Horror that helps it stand out from the competition of the day, like the popular Hammer Horror films.
Once there one of the gang is brutally knifed to death and the group is left to wonder if one of their own is a killer.The Haunted House of Horror (also known simply as Horror House) is a swinging 60's British chiller that's a bit of a mixed-bag for horror fans.
The uneven performances from the cast don't help things either.Still, overall Haunted House of Horror has enough going for it to make it an interesting watch - particularly for fans of British horror from this era or maybe for people who just hate Frankie Avalon.** out of ****.
Despite the slightly silly Scooby Doo "teenage" characters that are introduced early in the film at a swinging sixties house party, the acting gets realistically serious as we enter the haunted house of the title.
Like most 60s and 70s horror movies, this is worth watching because of the awful clothing, poor acting, and worse script.
al.Frankie baby and his English pals get bored at a party so they go explore a 'haunted' house one of his friends knows about.
The culprit is one of the group but I won't say which one because that would give it all away.It's actually not bad and since it looks like it was filmed in an actual run-down English house, it's got some good atmosphere to it.
It looks like Armstrong intended to make a slasher-style "Blow-Up," in which Mod London was revealed to be a lot less fun than its image, but throwing in US surfer-singer Avalon and a bunch of middle-aged characters just distracts from that theme.
Pretty much taken away from him in the writing department by the producer (Deke Heyward), and on the directing front by Gerry Levy, the garbled mess that is this film should not be held against the talented Armstrong.A bunch of young adults in swanky London get bored at a friend's house party and decide to move on to a nearby derelict house that is rumoured to be haunted.
When one of them is found murdered, panic, mistrust and bad decision making ensue...Well, a third of the film passes before the group get to the supposed haunted house of the title.
Ham acting, predictable plot and liberal lashings of ketchup make this a classic 60's British horror film made in the 'Hammer Horror' time honoured way when the country was great at everything.
Basically the story revolves around not for long fun-loving,swinging 60s teenagers wandering around a creepy, old, reputedly haunted house and getting bumped off by instalments.
Umm. Unlike the unsubtle use of chainsaws in Texas what makes this film for me is the imaginative and atmospheric use of the interior and exterior location shots which give 'The Haunted House of Horror' a very creepy feel and a well deserved regard as a cult classic of it's genre..
Group of older British kids (and one American, Frankie Avalon!) leave a boring party to chase ghosts at a supposedly haunted abandoned mansion; murders follow.
Frankie Avalon is already fighting middle age spread as the sole American in a cast of British never-heard-of's who split from a groovy mod party to a dusty deserted old house where naturally, a murder happens.
And later another, and another...ending with a resolution that feels like the writer thought it up on the last day of filming.The spookiest things in this movie don't even happen at the old house, and most involve the female cast.
Grim Suzanne, who's ended an affair with a strange older man, can't stay at the old house because she simply must go for coffee, and spends the entire movie looking disinterested (or perhaps constipated).
According to the magazine Video Watchdog, the original had a different title ("Haunted House of Horror"), the two very bloody murders were purposely darkened to get a PG rating and 20 minutes were cut out!
Now we have the full version available and it is an improvement--but it still isn't a good film.A bunch of 20 somethings in 1968 England decide, for no reason, to go ghost hunting at a deserted, supposedly haunted house.
It is an early over-the-top slasher film starring Frankie Avalon and taking place in Swinging London, which allows the art director to go crazy with all the latest Mary Quant mini-fashions, the form-fitting jumpsuits, the triple-layered eyelashes, the monumental hair-dos and wigs, the garish colours, a glimpse of the Beatles' Apple store, the latest mod accessories, all literally "tacked on" the dingiest apartment interiors imaginable this side of "Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch".
What follows has a numbing inevitability about it, not helped by the fact that the 'haunted house' has all the atmosphere of a Wetherspoons pub, or that the ensuing antics of the actors are so whimsically asinine that you often wonder if you're not watching an episode of Hollyoaks where the cast have unwittingly invented time travel.That is not to say that the acting was the worst thing about this film.
The Haunted House of Horror is a boring and dated horror movie from England about a group of "swinging party goers" who spend a night in an empty house for fun, only to find that a murder is committed.
There are spoilers in this review, but as the film is no classic, I feel like you might as well know what you are going to be in for if you are remotely interested in seeing it.You could imagine this film building to some kind of sustained suspense as the group arrive and begin exploring the house with candles, but once the murder is committed, the film spirals into all sorts of baffling red herrings and pointless dead ends.
Whilst the loose morals and superficial machinations of youthful Sixties' 'swinging London' are engagingly handled, it seems an age before someone suggests going to 'the old house' to liven up a tepid evening's entertainment.American singing sensation Frankie Avalon is top-billed Chris, but is more of a supporting character to the excellent Richard O'Sullivan's far more interesting Peter and Mark Wynter's two-timing Gary - at least for the first two thirds of the 92 minute running time.
George Sewell looks menacing as Kellett, and Dennis Price is wasted as the Inspector - a role originally envisaged for Boris Karloff (although given Karloff's health during the late 1960s, it is difficult to imagine him in the role).Director and writer Michael Armstrong fails to inject many scares into this, and typically of Tigon's output at the time, the results could better be described as a fairly routine mystery than a horror (despite the premise).Tigon films were prolific at the time.
Essentially it's the story of some bored twenty-somethings (and Frankie Avalon, for some strange reason) leaving a lame party and going to check out an allegedly haunted house.
Over the course of the night, one of their number gets murdered, and with only one possible entrance to the house having been locked, the only explanation is that one of them is the culprit.Writer/director Michael Armstrong initially intended to make a much more psychedelic horror movie starring his pal David Bowie.
60s beach movie sensation Frankie Avalon stars as Chris, one of a group of crazy, swinging London 'kids' who decide to split their dullsville house party for a more atmospheric locale, a run-down, supposedly haunted mansion in the countryside.
Is the killer the ghost of the maniac who once lived there, or has one of the friends flipped their wig, man?Haunted House of Horror is, for the most part, very tedious viewing thanks to its formulaic plot, bland dialogue and wooden performances from a cast that, with only a couple of exceptions, look too old for their roles (Avalon was pushing thirty!!!).
THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR – one hell of a title that has little to do with the film itself – is notable as one of the earliest examples of the slasher genre, the sort of film where lots of pretty young folk are offed one by one by an unknown killer.
It has assured direction by Michael Armstrong, who afterwards went to the continent to shoot grisly witchcraft horror MARK OF THE DEVIL, and a cast of youthful actors who were once big names in their heyday.Frankie Avalon, a one-time singer, has one of the major roles playing his typical character – young, handsome, popular with the ladies, charismatic to boot.
I recorded "Haunted House Of Horror" because it sounded like a fun 60's slasher that was so bad it was good!
It actually turned out to be a dull, messy slasher that left a lot to be desired.So we're introduced to a bunch of sixties past-its acting like kids at a party when they're actually in there 30's by the looks of things and one of the gets bored, so they decide to go to an even more boring old house to go ghost hunting!
In the haunted house someone gets murdered in quite an amusing way, blood flies everywhere (well I say blood, more like a can of Dulex) and instead of getting out to call the police, they decide to bury the body in case it's one of them.
The Haunted House of Horror is set in London during the swinging 60's where Sheila (Jill Haworth) works in a clothes shop, while at a party one night things turn really boring so some bright spark suggest that a large group of them head over to a supposedly haunted house on the outskirts of town for no apparent reason.
I was then expecting The Haunted House of Horror to play out like an 80's teen slasher with the teens being killed off one-by-one because of their own stupidity but amazingly the script goes back to being an absolute bore as we jump forward three days & Gary is reported missing to the police.
Eventually the film finished with all the teens going back to the (not) haunted house for reasons that, again, make no sense before the killer is unmasked in a truly logic defying revelation during which Frankie Avalon is stabbed in the crotch.
Apart from a couple of gory murders there's no horror either so I don't quite know what The Haunted House of Horror is good for.
Director Armstrong originally wanted David Bowie in it but was told no by AIP, Beach Party star & singer Frankie Avalon was a strange casting choice while most of the teens look well into their thirties.
Occasionally amusing for the wrong reasons & there are a couple of gory murders bot The haunted House of Horror has little else going for it..
That's quite unique already, and then "The Haunted House of Horror" also gets a couple of extra points for originality because the lead characters are a mixture of hippie teenagers and old-fashioned stern police investigators.
Perhaps, but I don't think so The film starts very 'hippie-sixties' like, with some guy going on a lunch break date with a blond girl, but during a private house party later that day he is much more interested in a brunette girl.
Overall, I certainly don't regret watching "The Haunted House of Horror" but surely it could have been a lot better.