House of the Living Dead (1976)

Sometimes I watch a movie and have to ask myself why?  Why make the movie?  Why not have a plot that actually makes some sense?  Why not have a clue what you want to put on film before turning on the camera?  House of the Living Dead (a.k.a.  Curse of the Dead) is one of those movies.

Basically the plot here is about a woman that travels to South Africa to marry her fiancé.  When she arrives she finds that the man has an insane brother that likes to carry off monkeys for some twisted experiments.  If that weren’t enough warning for her the man’s mother is very hostile and keeps trying to get her to leave.  Though we eventually find out that it is because she wants their family bloodline to end.  Seems that madness is a common trait and she would rather not pass this along to another generation.  Some killings happen and the woman soon finds herself in the middle of some twisted family dynamics.

I just realized that I made the movie sound more interesting then it really is.  Don’t be fooled by my plot synopsis House of the Living Dead isn’t worth spending your time on.  The plot is dead slow with nothing much interesting happening until the last 5 minutes of the flick.  In fact the damn movie doesn’t make sense until then either.  I mean it seems that the sane brother is the crazy one.  Spoilers ahead…  The brothers were twins and the sane one is long dead.  See now you don’t need to see the movie to find out what the twist is. 

There are a few creepy moments in the movie, but mostly we get to see people walking around spouting bad dialogue. Not only that but I didn’t like the characters at all.  Well okay I did sort of like the mother, who was the only character that made any sense.  I mean she knew they were all screwed up and everyone should stay away.  Plus she was the only actress or actor in the cast that was really giving a good performance.  The rest were either as confused as I was as a viewer or just disinterested in making any effort at all. 

I could talk about the gore but other then one brain operation on an orangutan there isn’t any.  And even that isn’t much more then a tube with “blood” in it.  The movie is supposed to have a body count, but you don’t see any.  Oh and speaking of seeing the movie is so dark that any implied attacks in the shadows or at night look like you are staring at a blank screen.  Then again that might just be the copy that I was watching.  But then again given the rest of the quality on the screen I think not.

Bottom line this one is a stinker that you should pass on.  The good news is that it is on a set with a bunch of other movies, including Beyond Atlantis.  That movie is worth the purchase price alone.  The set is called Scream Theater and you can get it from VCI Entertainment.  Check out their website here for more details. 

½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer