Ghosthouse (1989)

Strong and Moving!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Ghosthouse is a by-the-numbers haunted house movie. It's got all the standard clichés - a pair of gruesome murders in the house's back-story, the ghost of a little girl in a white dress, a menacing clown doll with evil written all over its face, and a spooky children's nursery rhyme sung over even creepier organ music. Into this mix, throw in a half-dozen or so teens/young adults, a couple of clueless cops, and a psychotic caretaker, and you've got a nice set-up.My 5/10 rating means that I'm calling Ghosthouse "average" - it has just about an equal number of both good and bad parts. On the good side of things: the little girl and clown are about as creepy as you'll find; the house has a fair bit of good atmosphere; and the repeated nursery rhyme is very effective. On the bad side: every single character, without exception, is as dumb as a box of rocks; the acting is often painful to watch; and the dialogue is ridiculous, making everyone sound even more like an idiot. Ghosthouse was directed by Umberto Lenzi. I've always found Lenzi to be a fine director and I enjoy most of his work (I'm especially fond of Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, Almost Human, and Cannibal Ferox). So, while he is a competent enough director, I think the biggest problem with Ghosthouse is Lenzi had no budget to work with. Despite all his efforts, it just looks cheap.

"Ghosthouse" is about a group of obnoxious teenagers trapped in a haunted house where terrible crime took place years ago.A ghostly little girl in white and her creepy clown doll are causing all the terror.A radio operator and his girlfriend trace the source of a weird,scary signal that keeps interrupting his radio.They trace it to an old,abandoned house where they meet a group of teenagers staying in it.The script is half-assed and the acting sucks,but "Ghosthouse" provides plenty of good bloody fun.The evil doll clown looks creepy and the nursery theme is haunting.If you are into late 80's Italian horror give this one a chance.7 out of 10.

Ghost House has been a hard movie to track down for some time, but if you do make the effort, be prepared for disappointment - the film itself is a bit of a washout. First of all the house is the same one as used in Fulci's "House by the Cemetery"...if only this movie was as good as that one! The plot sees a bunch of teenagers (two amateur detectives and a band of holidaymakers) investigating an empty house that was once the scene of a gruesome double murder. What follows is a very muddled series of hunting's and more murders, seemingly carried out by the ghost of a little girl and her toy clown. The various deaths and ghostly visions are laughable, including dozens of completely unrelated manifestations such as a ghost dog, the head of a corpse in a washing machine (why??) and a vat of something that looks like porridge under the floor. Most hopeless of all are the scenes in which the actors pretend to be attacked by the evil clown doll (an obvious but lame attempt to rip-off "Poltergeist"). The murders are fairly gory, but none are particularly convincing, and the acting is nearly all terrible, not helped by the script which just continues to make up excuses for all the characters to keep going back in house to get picked off. Plus the red-herrings that go nowhere (the hitchhiker and the crazy old caretaker), and explanation for the haunting which is pathetic...it seems as though Lenzi knew he wanted a ghostly little girl and a clown doll, and just wrote a story around it. In its favor, the film is well shot, and a few jolts actually do work (the one when the biker girl is washing her face in the sink was fun), but there is zero suspense or tension. As I said, it's not worth the effort. But if you really must see it, there's a great Region 2 DVD release - available from Amazon.co.UK. I have this edition, and its a nice looking remastered print (uncut and widescreen, no less), but even so, there are far better euro-horrors around than this.

Ghosthouse (1987) ** (out of 4) Italian horror film from director Umberto Lenzi about a haunted house and the fools who dare enter it. While this plays itself as a haunted house film, clearly influenced by The Shining, in reality it's just another excuse for over the top gore and violence. Lenzi manages to get a few creepy scenes out involving a dead girl and her doll but these only last a few scenes. The film starts off pretty good but falls apart when a couple kids try to uncover the mystery behind the house. The gore effects are rather strong and extremely well done so splatterheads should have that to enjoy.