Ghosthouse (1988)

To enjoy this film, one must not be nitpicky... well, one must simply not expect too much logic either. Or decent dialogs and acting. It may sound like I'm trashing this film and I'm warning people to stay away from it, but read further and you'll see that I actually have a strange fascination towards this movie, even though I am well aware of how ridiculus it can get. "Ghosthouse" is definitely a weird b-class horror gem that, for some reason, I hadn't even heard of it until recently, though I am an avid 32-year-old horror fan. Strange, huh? Well, not so much if we are willing to admit that this film is, in fact, very flawed, but manages to shine in its own way.

In "Ghousthouse", the story goes something like this: an amateur radio operator named Paul picks up a signal of two people screaming, pressumably before being attacked by someone or something. Paul somehow manages to track down the location where these screaming occured and decides to travel to this place with his girlfriend, Martha (sure, why would they call the police in the first place? after all, these are badly written characters in a low budget horror flick and they need to act accordingly). When Paul and Martha arrive to the place where the screamings occured, they are greeted by a decaying old man who tells them to get the hell out of there and mind their own business. Of course, crazy old farts are never taken too seriously, especially when they look like they are in a solid relationship with booze and mental illness. As soon as they arrive, Martha tells Paul that she wants to leave, because the house gives her a bad feeling (which is reasonsable, considering that it's the same house where Lucio Fulci's "The House by the Cemetery" was filmed).

Paul and Martha break into the house (of course!) to come across a group of four young squatters who travel around in a camper and a motorbike (seriously, doesn't anyone have a job here?). One of these youngsters, whose name is Mark, owns a radio and his voice sounds exactly like the voice of the person that Paul heard screaming the night before. Paul, who conveniently recorded those screamings on tape, allows Mark to listen to the recordings, and though the later one admits that the voice on that tape sounds exactly like his own, he denies having been involved in any screaming situation whatsoever during the night before. "Ok, what the fudge is going on here?", Paul wonders. Soon, him and his girlfriend will unravel a mistery surrounding the house, that started 20 years ago, which involves a young child named Henrietta, her grave robbing father and a creepy clown doll that randomly plays an eerie lullaby.

Plot-wise, "Ghosthouse" makes the effort to provide some sensibleness from time to time, but it also offers a great deal of nonsense just to give us some gruesome imagery and shocks. As the story progresses, some things appear to make no sense whatsoever, while we foolishly asume that those loose ends will be tied up in the end... well, don't get your hopes up. When the credits start to roll, we understand that many things just didn't make sense all along and we are forced to come up with our own theories to fill a bunch of blank spaces in the script. This is not exactly a sign of superb script writting, but the movie is enjoyable neverthless. Examples with major spoilers ahead: Why is Valkos, the crazy old man, so determined to kill these kids and Mr. Baker's former business partner? Is he related to the person who originally owned the clown doll and he feels the obligation to avenge him or her? Why do we see the goddamn Grim Reaper lurking around the house, like he pays rent? Who the heck invited the Grim Reaper to this convoluted mess? What are all those dead bodies doing in the basement? Should we assume that, besides the grave robbing, the house was also built over a ground with dead corpses buried there, like it happens in "Poltergeist"? That wouldn't be surprising, since Umberto Lenzi sort of tried to latch out onto the success of "Poltergeist" by using a creepy clown doll. Be that as it may, those dead bodies in the basement are never explained or even mentioned by the Lieutenant who reluctantly steps in to take care of this mess. Ugh... what can I say? "Ghosthouse" offers a truckload of entertainment, but several things just don't make sense, which is frustrating for anyone who, understandably, prefers movies that provide a coherent plot.

"Ghosthouse" features a bunch of one-dimensional characters that aren't particularly memorable , so it's hard to genuinely grow attached to any of them. Regardless, these silly youngsters don't really cause any harm to anyone, so in the end, it's hard not to empathize with them at least to a certain extent. The dialogs are artificial and amateurish, which is basically mandatory for a horror flick that shows a ghostly young girl holding an evil looking clown doll on the cover. This film provides a nice amount of gore, creative murders, cheesy music and some great moments of unintended hilarity, while staying away from any type of sex or nudity, which is rather unusual for a flick like this. Just enjoy it and don't try to make too much sense out of it, or you'll be in for a big disappointment.