Poll Position: House (1986)

Thank you to everyone who voted for House. Not to be confused with another movie with the same title I watched back in March, Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 film House. While we're at it, not to be confused with the TV show about a doctor either. This movie was actually originally recommended in the comments of my review of the 1977 Japanese film by @staciedenola. I have to admit that I forgot about it, but when I was researching Halloween movies, it came back to me. I remember being a kid and wandering the aisles of the video store, and seeing the VHS of this movie with the creepy hand ringing the doorbell. It freaked me out and fascinated me all at the same time! Hit the jump to see if it can still freak me out so many years later when I finally get to watch House.


Roger Cobb (William Katt) has just learned that his dear Aunt has passed away. Roger is a popular horror writer, but it's been a while since his last book. He's been struggling with putting his Vietnam experiences to paper. Fans aren't exactly anxious for this new book, but it's something Roger feels he needs to do. Roger's life is in shambles. His son went missing, his marriage fell apart, and now he has writer's block. To help him write, he figures moving into his Aunt's old house will give him a change of scenery, and might just give him that spark he's been missing. Little does he realize that his Aunt was never kidding when she said the house was haunted. It doesn't take long before the house starts to turn on its new resident.

A freakish creature bursts out of the closet at the stroke of midnight!

House doesn't seem to know what kind of movie it wants to be sometimes. For the first half of the film, it takes all of its rubber monsters very seriously. The first encounter Roger has with the "monster closet" is sudden and freaky and totally caught me off guard. It nearly kills him, but he manages to fight it off. The house certainly doesn't take it easy on him! But then later, the tone of the film becomes comedic, even having strange happy, upbeat music as if nothing is going wrong. Did we forget he was nearly killed? Then, if that wasn't enough, Roger keeps having war flashbacks while he recounts what happened in the jungles as he writes his book. It was a little odd the way it kept changing, but it also wasn't that big of a deal.

The effects in the movie are hit and miss for me. Some of them, like the closet monster and the skeleton were cool. Other things like the swordfish coming to life, or the weird blob-shaped, dress-wearing monster were less impressive. In fact, laughable would be the word I'd use. In a way they fit though, because this is also around the point of the movie when the goofy happy music pops in. There were other monsters that were half good, and half bad throughout the movie, but we never see those ones for very long.

Roger gears up and is ready for war with the house and it's creatures

Along with some of the effects, I also liked the characters in the movie. Roger isn't alone in his struggle, he also has his new next door neighbour Harold, played by George Wendt of Cheers fame. At first the two don't exactly get along and the friendship is pretty weak. However, once the movie takes its turn towards the comedy bits, the friendship really works and Roger enlists Harold's help in wrangling some of the spirits of the house, even if Harold thinks he's gone a little looney. Lastly, we have the towering Richard Moll playing "Big Ben". We see him in some of the war flashbacks. I recognized him as Bull from Night Court, so it was just fun to see him again.

The house merges Roger's war nightmares with the spirits for the ultimate enemy!

I had a lot of fun with this movie. While this was sort of an example of how practical effects aren't always the best things in the world, it was still really fun to see him beat a rubber monster with a shovel. Another thing I liked is that this movie starts already at a fairly low point, and by the end it's at such a high point it far surpasses where our hero starts in the film. Most horror movies only manage to get back to the status quo, or sometimes the best they can hope for is just that not all of them are dead. The fact that House ends on a higher point than it started was a nice change of pace after all these horror movies I've been watching.

Even after all the praise I've given it, House would be a pretty hard movie to recommend seriously. Maybe if you had a bunch of friends over and had some beers. Then it would probably work better. It's definitely a cheesy goofy 80s movie, but sometimes that's a good thing. I certainly can't deny that I had a fun time watching this film!