AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

violetta1485 The plot seems to be a hot mess, which one Armstrong website attributes to studio meddling that cut out key scenes and characters and replaced them with others, thus destroying whatever unity there was. 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. It is, however, an awesome time-capsule of Swingin' Sixties clothes, hairstyles, makeup, and sets. The girls have miniskirts, false eyelashes, teased hair (or hair pieces) in the requisite flip-with-fringe; the guys have Technicolor ruffled shirts and Beatle bowl-cuts. They act out their angst in living rooms full of Pop Art. Enjoy it for the era's eye candy.

lonchaney20 I'm hardly the first to say it, but memory is a funny thing. I taped this film off of TCM several years ago, and while the film largely struck me as average, the ending haunted me so profoundly that it left a lasting impact on my own work as a writer. I later imported a DVD copy from the UK on the strength of that final scene alone, but I kept putting off re-watching it due to the weaknesses of the story as a whole. Perhaps, too, there was some trepidation at seeing the ending again. I had a built it up so much in my mind that surely the last scene could never live up to my memory. Finally I cast aside my doubts and, having forgotten just about everything except the finale (and the fact that someone gets stabbed in the penis - ouch!), gave it a second shot.So much has happened between my first viewing and my second that the experienced proved to be profoundly different. I've become much more receptive to different kinds of cinema - so receptive, in fact, that people probably don't trust my opinions. That ship usually sails the minute you start recommending Andy Milligan movies. Anyway, I really enjoyed the film this 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. The producers balked on Bowie (a move they no doubt came to regret) and forced Armstrong to take a more conventional approach. Even in its diluted form its still an impressive piece of work, with witty dialogue delivered by a capable cast (even Avalon seems shockingly at home in Swinging London), moody cinematography, a great location, and some well executed (and surprisingly bloody) murders. If the film makes one potentially fatal mistake, it's in spending too much time outside of the creepy abandoned house. Within the dusty ruin Armstrong and cinematographer Jack Atcheler are able to conjure an atmosphere reminiscent of the Italian Gothics. After the first murder, though, we spend a great deal of time back in the city as our heroes attempt to go on with their lives. Clearly the home is where the heart is with this movie, but Armstrong (or Gerry Levy, who rewrote much of the script at AIP's insistence) can only come up with a flimsy pretext to get the characters back there.As for that ending? Of course it let me down to some extent. My mind had warped it over the years, and in a way my conception of it fused with the stories I myself had been inspired to write after watching it. Looking at it more objectively, though, the sympathy the filmmakers have for their tragic killer still strikes a chord with me, and the final image is still strangely poignant. Perhaps the film isn't an exceptional murder mystery - more than a few clichés are accounted for - but it's nonetheless an entertaining and skillfully directed one. Certainly it's no classic, but it's far better than its 4.5 rating on IMDb would lead you to believe.

BA_Harrison 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. Rather stupidly, the group decide to hold a séance at the stroke of midnight, after which one of their number is brutally killed in a frenzied knife attack. 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!!!). A little fun can be had from the film's groovy sixties fashion—floral shirts, cravats, mini-dresses and go-go boots—but the film's only real selling point as far as I am concerned are a couple of surprisingly bloody deaths, particularly the last one in which the victim gets a kukri (a Nepalese knife with a large curved blade) rammed into his crotch. Nasty!

moonspinner55 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. There's an interesting sub-plot in this sub-par slasher--that of a young woman trying to untangle herself from an affair with a married older man--but it is wasted in this hysterical context. Released by Tigon Productions, a British arm of American International (which explains Avalon's appearance), and one in dire need of some macabre imagination. This one substitutes thrills with clichés, bright red blood, deadening teen-nobodys dotting the cast, and a depressing air of pointlessness in the wake of some shock deaths. Watchable for fans of the genre, but hardly satisfying. *1/2 from ****