The House on Skull Mountain (1974)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Crappy film

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN is a familiar type of old-fashioned horror film with one twist: it's a blaxploitation movie too, with a cast populated almost entirely by black actors. Otherwise it's a rather slow and stately effort that delivers some rural horror inside a house haunted by voodoo and its effects.This story seems to deliberately hark back to the 'old dark house' films of the 1930s and reminded me a lot of THE HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES, although the thrills are more moody and less visceral. Once again the reading of a will is the main plot point and there's a great deal of atmosphere-building in the form of wandering around creepy old locations and characters suffering from weird dreams and manifestations.Those looking for blood will find this a slow, tame affair and will probably hate it, and it's fair to say that the voodoo ceremony climax is much like that of Hammer's THE WITCHES, merely a bunch of people dancing around in a basement, silly rather than shocking. However, I did find the film oddly appealing overall, with an atmosphere of regret and decay that works nicely in its favour.

The title of this minor horror-blaxploitation item seems to indicate you're in for something resembling a Scooby-Doo mystery. Still, director Ron Honthaner, working from a script by Mildred Pares, is able to generate sufficient atmosphere and overall strangeness. Even at 86 minutes, though, you can feel the padding on this thing. The final third contains way too much dancing and drumming. The cast does alright; part of the mixture of ingredients here is the potential for an interracial romance and the presence of a white face in a prominent black family, offering some sort of outsiders' perspective.That outsider is anthropology professor Andrew Cunningham (Victor French of 'Little House on the Prairie' and 'Highway to Heaven'), a member of the Christophe clan who arrive at the title location after the death of the family matriarch (Mary J. Todd McKenzie) for the reading of the will and other such matters. However, they will soon start to fall victim to so-called "accidents" engineered by an enigmatic individual on the premises.Mike Evans of 'Good Times' and 'The Jeffersons' supplies the obnoxious comedy relief as a character whom we presume that we won't miss all that much. Xernona Clayton is endearing as Harriet, who has visions of death plaguing her, the stunning Janee Michelle ("Scream Blacula Scream", "The Mephisto Waltz") adds a lot of sex appeal as our leading lady Lorena, Ella Woods (who also sings one tune) is good as house staff member Louette, and Jean Durand is amusing if never that intimidating as the mysterious butler Thomas. The special effects aren't too special, the music by Jerrold Immel is adequate, the basic set-up does hearken back to horror films of the 30s, and the finale does involve the appearance of a zombie.This one might be worth a passing glance if one is flipping channels late at night, but it's nothing that people should go out of their way to see.Five out of 10.

Back in the 1970s, Mike Evans played the recurring character Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons". Eventually, he was replaced on "The Jeffersons" by a guy who looked nothing like him...and I always wondered why this happened. Well, after reading a bit, it seems that he quit acting temporarily in 1975 because he was the co-creator and writer for "Good Times". However, just before quitting acting, he accepted a leading role in "The House on Skull Mountain". Perhaps Evans should have considered giving up acting a year sooner-- since his role in the film was rather one dimensional and silly. Of course, the film itself is one dimensional and silly!!The film begins with an old black lady dying. Various relatives who don't know each other have all been invited to her estate for a reading of the old woman's will. However, before this occurs, there is a death--and things start to get really scary. Lots of snakes appear and disappear, the Grim Reaper keeps popping by to visit and there's an underground voodoo cult that meets there for their little dance parties. Who will survive the stay at Skull Mountain? If I had some distant relative die and I was invited to their estate at Skull Mountain, I might just think twice. After all, 'Skull Mountain' doesn't exactly sound like a friendly place! And, when various folks in the home start seeing weird hallucinations of death, you'd think they'd skedaddle--I sure know I would! But, being a cheesy exploitation film they don't and the results are rather predictable and silly. I also wonder if most Black-Americans who might watch this today might just feel a bit embarrassed by all this silliness and these stereotypes. And, it really is silly--just the sort of guilty pleasure bad movie fans might enjoy. Others, however, should watch at their own risk--Shakespeare this isn't!

Although I thought that "The House on Skull Mountain" was overall a fairly neat movie, I wish that it had featured more action. And people need to realize that voodoo is more than just people sticking pins in dolls; voodoo is a religion. Of course, there can never be too many movies about haunted houses.The plot is that an elderly African-American woman dies and a couple of people are invited to her house near Atlanta. Sure enough, there are bad things going on in this house. I thought that Phillippe was sort of a cliché (alcoholic wise guy), but he was the neatest character in the movie! Anyway, there's nothing special about this movie.