Review of Ghosthouse (1988; Umberto Lenzi) & Witchery (1988; Fabrizio Laurenti) - A recent Scream Factory Double Feature Blu-ray. Check out the review below:
This double feature contains two supernatural horror films, Ghosthouse and Witchery. Both are Italian productions and part of the "La Casa" series, better known as unofficial sequels to The Evil Dead in Italy. Ghosthouse is about a couple who hears a strange radio call that eventually leads them to an old abandoned house. Once they arrive at this house they meet up with a group of people who have been staying in their camper next to the abandoned house for a few days. Eventually they all go inside to find where this weird radio transmission is coming from. They eventually find the source but then spilt up to investigate the rest of the house. This is when crazy stuff begins to happen and people begin to meet their end.
Witchery is a about a haunted hotel resort on an island off of Massachusetts where Gary (David Hasselhoff) and his friend Linda (Catherine Hickland) are doing research on witchcraft and the island. Eventually another group of people come to the island, a married couple with an interest in buying the resort and reopening it. With the married couple is their pregnant daughter (Linda Blair). Now that the whole group is on the island a storm prevents them from leaving. As they investigate the resort people begin to die off.
Ghosthouse is not a very well made film but it does have some quality factors. It would be safe to say that this film falls into the "so bad its good territory." If you can tolerate the poor story and bad acting you can get the enjoyment of seeing almost all of these characters characters die in some well done effects sequences. For the most part the death scenes are pretty cool and a lot more extreme than you would expect from a movie like this. I would say that this film has a pretty quick pace and filled with many fast kills. Overall Ghosthouse is a funny little film that at times can be a little tedious but, for the most part, is filled with a bunch of "so bad its good" moments that can lead to an enjoyable viewing experience as long as the viewer knows what they are getting into.
Witchery has a lot more going for it than Ghosthouse does. Namely, it has better acting, a stronger story, and a bigger budget. This has the film closer to being a solid horror film than a "so bad its good film." Keep in mind though that even though this film is better than Ghosthouse, it is not that much of a compliment. While Ghosthouse has a rather quick pace and fast kills, Witchery was quite the opposite. It had a pretty slow pace and most of the kills in the film have a longer setup and execution. As a result, Witchery has some lulls in its runtime that can bring the audience to loose interest. Overall Witchery is a solid film with a decent story and some pretty cool death sequences that unfortunately suffers from a plodding pace.
While these two films a pretty different in story and tone, they do share some things in common. The biggest thing these two films share in common is that they are not by any means "good" movies. Rather, they are very polarizing films in the sense that you are going to hate them because they suck or you are going to enjoy them because they suck, this is more evident in Ghosthouse. This is because the story, acting, and budget are not very good. Poor acting plagues both of these films, especially Ghosthouse. The acting is very bad in this film but some might get some slight enjoyment out of such weak performances. Another thing they have in common is some cool and unique death sequences in each film. At best these two films are solid little films with some good aspects that are mostly overshadowed by bad aspects.
Overall these two films cannot really be classified as "good" films, rather they can be either a lot of fun or a tedious effort. Your enjoyment of these films is dependent on your enjoyment of "bad they're good" type films and lowered expectations. If you are the type you routinely enjoys these types of films than I can't find any reason why you wouldn't enjoy this Double Feature. This Double Feature release from Scream Factory is very solid. It is a good inclusion into the Scream Factory collection for the sake of expanding the library beyond American films. This is one of the few Italian films found in the collection and will hopefully lead to more.
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