House II: The Second Story (1987)

Time to take a look at the second movie in the House franchise. This one has a much different tone and is more family friendly then the first. Instead of scares and horror we get cute puppets and a kindly zombie great grandfather. Shall we take a look?

Anyone expecting a direct connection to the first House movie don’t. This one has nothing to do with the first, other than there is a house involved. Here we see a couple in the past giving their baby away and being killed by a mysterious figure almost immediately afterwards. Twenty-five years later that baby, now grown up, comes back to claim his inheritance. Jesse, the grown-up child, and his girlfriend are just settling in when Charlie shows up. He is Jesse’s drunken friend and has a young lady in tow. There is a subplot involving Charlie and Jesse’s girlfriends and a devious music producer played by Bill Maher that is forgettable. The good stuff involves the boys and Jesse’s dead great great grandfather.

Reading thru some old papers Jesse realizes that there was a very valuable crystal skull that has gone missing. It is worth a lot of money and he decides it must be buried with his great grandfather. Of course, the most reasonable thing is to go dig him up to see if he has it. Um okay I guess… Well Gramps isn’t dead, more undead, and after finding out that Charlie is his great great grandson he takes a liking to him. The Skull has been keeping him alive but he warns them that it will also attract evil. When a prehistoric caveman, some Aztec Indians, and Gramps’ old west outlaw partner eventually shows up no one is surprised. Let the mayhem begin!

This is a decent movie. The story is entertaining and uses the location of the house in an interesting way. See as the evil beings are attracted to the skull they open portals in the house. When Jesse and Charlie go after the skull they step into a bedroom and end up in the past dealing with dinosaurs or temples full of Aztec warriors.  This reminds me a lot of My Science Project and how the high school had connections to different time periods and mixed up the inhabitants of those places with each other. Same thing here as Jesse ends up with not only zombie Gramps, but a prehistoric bird, and a dog/caterpillar hybrid as well. The previous pair being brought to screen with cutesy puppets that the kids will enjoy. Hell, he even gets a new Aztec girlfriend when he saves her from being sacrificed!

There isn’t any gore and honestly it wouldn’t fit in House II. Even the characters that are dead aren’t played for scares. The makeup is pretty tame compared to Big Ben from the first movie. House II is a much sillier take on the idea. While I enjoy the one of the first House much more I will give this installment credit. It has that quintessential ‘80s Horror for kids feel to it that movies like Monster Squad or the previously mentioned My Science Project had. It is an intelligent and well written flick for a younger audience. Don’t see many of those anymore.

I recommend House II: The Second Story with the caveat that it is a much different movie than the original. Still I enjoyed it and thing that it is a solid follow up. But if you dive into it thinking you are getting more of what you had the first time around you may be disappointed.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

House (1985)

Time to delve deep into another franchise. This time around it is the loosely connected House series of movies. I know you, the uninitiated, probably thing there are only two in the series. Well, there are four so that is enough to make it a franchise in my book. Time to dig into the first and honestly best in the series.

William Katt plays a famous horror author named Roger. As the story opens we see that he is struggling to write his next book amid recently losing his son and getting divorced from his wife. His aunt who raised him kills herself and he moves into her old house. The same house where he saw his son disappear into the swimming pool, though no one believed him. Not long after arriving he starts to see ghosts including that of his aunt. She warns him that the house tricked her and that he needs to get out before it is too late. But he won’t leave. Instead, he works on his book about his experiences in Vietnam. We see these played out as flashbacks. It is here that we meet his army buddy Big Ben. Things don’t end well for Ben and that has a connection to the house and Roger’s son disappearing.

This is a classic from the eighties and one that most of us probably rented more than once on VHS. It has a great group of actors with William Katt, Richard Moll, and George Wendt, who is Roger’s nosey neighbor Harold. Moll and Wendt are both known for their comedic roles and that is put to good use in House. While I wouldn’t consider this a horror comedy it does have a lot of funny lines in it. Having some cast with comedic timing works in favor of the movie and was some inspired casting. The underrated Fred Dekker wrote the story that the screenplay is based on, and Steve Miner directed. That is a lot of horror cred right there, so it isn’t any wonder the movie works so well.

Being an eighties horror movie, we have to talk special effects work. We don’t get any gory kills, but we do have four cool looking creatures. First up is the closet monster that Roger encounters early on after his return to the house. It is a large puppet that pops out and attacks him a couple of times. While it looks like a puppet, I still think that it works well on screen. Then you get Demon Sandy. Roger’s ex-wife stops by to check up on him, but of course it isn’t her but the house messing with him. Quickly we get demon Sandy, which is an actor in a latex body suit and is reminiscent of Henrietta from Evil Dead II. We also get a stop motion skull bat that attacks Roger when he crosses over to look for his son. Cheesy but again I rather liked it. Finally, zombie Big Ben shows up. This makeup gets a lot of screen time, and deservedly so. This is by far my favorite creature.

This is a great movie and a must see if you are a horror fan. It seems that I see a budget DVD with House and House II in the aisles of most big box stores every Halloween, so it is easy to get your hands on. I highly recommend it.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer