Terror en la Casa!

 

Terror en la Casa

by Kristin Battestella

These slashers, ladykillers, and murder mysteries bring the horror home with period piece nostalgia and international flavor.

Cemetery of Terror – Retro TV static, eerie horror sounds, gory slices, and elevator shocks waste no time in this 1985 Mexican slasher. The English subtitles don't exactly match the spoken Spanish, but the hip tunes come from diegetic cassettes and boomboxes as the randy medical students and bathing suit babes plan to party in an abandoned house on Halloween. Though fitting with cobwebs, covered furniture, and evil grimoires, it's bemusing that the house doesn't seem old enough to be so abandoned thanks to the seventies paneling and shag carpets. A suave psychiatrist who knows the killer's satanic history and the police captain who think it's all routine add Miami Vice style as more local youths test each other's courage by going to the graveyard. That station wagon fits six adults – cruising along with the satanic killer's body in the back, no big. It's both humorous and demented as the morgue stretchers and dares to summon the dead escalate to Latin incantations in the cemetery on Halloween under the full moon. Sudden storms and scary, point of view suspense from our resurrected killer provide well done people in fear with no need for stereotypes, torture porn, or exploitation. Disturbing death blows happen fast as the killer gets intimate with his bloody, claw hands in well paced motivations that aren't drawn out for unnecessary effect. There's little to indicate it's Halloween besides jack-o-lanterns and vintage masks, for the skulls, crypts on fire, open graves, and tattered zombies rising are scary enough. Smoke and red lights accent the simplicity of kids in peril – unable to phone their parents and running in fear right back to the terrible manor. Sure, wielding a cross deters the zombies who can somehow walk through an entire cemetery full of cross grave markers anyway, but the multi layered horrors are effective without today's in your face hyperbole. Fiery black books and one on one battles with our man of action psychiatrist lead to a fun topper striking the right balance between genre winks and chills.

It Happened at Nightmare Inn – Originally A Candle for the Devil, this 1973 Spanish parable opens with swanky cityscapes and airplanes leading to our quaint village hotel run by two seriously uptight sisters. They violently object to their pretty blonde guest sunbathing on the roof and call her fatality divine providence for her indecency. After they chop up some lamb and scrub up the evidence, the elegant, soft spoken, less provocative sister of their late guest arrives alongside another tourist in hot pants dancing in the town fountain and a young mother with a baby knocking on their door. The perky and carefree blondes contrast the older, self righteous, harsh brunettes in dark button up clothes, and severe Gothic furniture, villa arches, stained glass, and organ crescendos match the medieval artwork, Inquisition past, and Catholic atmosphere. These ladies insist on running a respectable establishment, but one has a dalliance with the servant boy and the other gawks at the raunchy local men. She gets herself torn up in the briers as a mea culpa zen before donning a silky dress and saucy stockings. Our sisters almost turn on each other over the cash box, but it's time to sharpen the knives and tut tut at the hussy guests as innuendo and shaming layer the pent up attacks. Who gave them the right to be so high and mighty when they are women just the same? These supposed hasty departures make the townsfolk suspicious as a few slaps escalate to kidnapping, woman on woman violence, and fatal penetrations mirror the underlying guilt, repression, and demented joy. Snooping for evidence, vats in the basement, village intrigue, and close calls suspense culminate in food poisoning, gory revelations, axes, and eyeballs. Today this would be so unnecessarily heavy handed, and of course there are varying versions – a sixty-seven minute sanitized edition and a longer seventy-three minutes that still has awkward cuts on the sex and kills. Fortunately, this is an entertaining examination on female stereotypes via horror and it's worth pursuing the proper blu-ray edition.

Murder Mansion – There are varying versions of this 1972 Spanish/Italian La Mansion de la Niebla, however the organ music, dangerous mountain drives, and sexy hitchhikers set the snowy, seventies suave nonetheless. Gossipy couples, love triangles, and business before pleasure affairs are initially confusing, but the dubbing is well done – bemusing bickering rather than monotone banal. Soren to Milan overnight drives on the old valley road and ominous turns not on the map lead to squealing tires and car accidents near the foggy cemetery. A man with a sickle walks along the side of the road before more fearful figures in the mist and cackling echoes. Classic cars, cigarettes, guns, and creepy portraits add to the gothic atmosphere as one and all become stranded at the titular manor. The nearby village is abandoned, and our suspect hostess recounts local vampire legends and tales of the town witch to her hysterical guests. Hear tell of prior decapitation and impalements are dismissed despite the increasingly uneasy, eerie mood thanks to mirrors, evil eyes, and occult images looming over every room. Bare ladies' backs, lez be friends suggestions, and father/daughter jealousy or worse create innuendo before the dirty dude knocking on every bedroom door gets what's coming to him in chilling ghostly encounters. Billowing nightgowns escalate to blurred visions and fatal heartbeats as creaking doors and cobwebs lead to underground tunnels, chapel crypts, and coffins. Contemporary films often fail at this kind of surprising reveal, and although the edited editions excise the saucy violence, the genuine frights are effective without the skin and splatter overused today. The talkative set up and party flashbacks pad time on a thin story and too many uneven characterizations, but fortunately, this moody midnight scary remain swift and entertaining.

Retro Television Bonus

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre – This eighty minute 1964 CBS television film written and directed by Joseph Stefano (Psycho) was originally envisaged as a horror anthology pilot. Martin Landau stars (Mission: Impossible) as charming architect cum ghost hunter Nelson Orion ”as in the constellation” amid steamy kisses, picturesque beaches, and a mod bachelor pad. However screams, foggy cemeteries, and a family tomb with a horseshoe phone beside the un-embalmed interred provide Poe references and gothic atmosphere. Creepy housekeeper Judith Anderson (Rebecca) lurks about the grand manor, and the frazzled son of the deceased receives sobbing phone calls from a mother who's been dead for a year. The coffin is open and the receiver is warm but the skeleton is undisturbed, and midnight graveside meetings wax on how the wealthy make such elaborate art wasted on the dead while so many live in squalor. Howling winds, flickering lanterns, and closing crypt doors acerbate locked in the vault fears while the black and white lighting schemes accent wrought iron fences and marble tombs. Chandeliers, overhead angles, and multiple staircases make the mausoleum or manor appear larger amid rattling furniture, “psychical” powers, and science versus dogma debates. Orion doesn't charge for genuine hauntings but enjoys catching pranksters. He's not a medium but is wary of unbelievers – for he believes in freeing people of what haunts them be it guilt or ghost. Largely twofer dialogue carries the plot as Orion ponders what kind of mother expected a grown married man to always be home beside the phone. His sassy old housekeeper helps his “morbid adventures” as the sounding board for his exposition or deduction. Numerous up close shots of Landau push him as star, and this really could have been a delicious show with weekly horror guests. While the Spanish history on the titular missions and a whiff of religion are fine, the hear tell bleeding ghosts Orion's previously debunked feel tacked on when we could have seen that story. And Judith Anderson is supposed to be Hispanic? Seriously? At times the skepticism and music are laid on thick with repeated camera shots and unnecessary padding scenes. However the primitive chromakey overlays and phantom figures on the beach remain eerie. The then contemporary sleek and classical art work well with gothic candles, glowing paintings, and poison tonics as fatal pasts lead to stabbings and surprisingly well filmed vehicular revenge. Though at times somewhat Scooby Doo thanks to obvious supposition for modern viewers, this has some surprisingly creepy moments and fun performances for a late night watch.