Fright House (1989)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

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

Fright House isn't a crappy movie. It's two crappy movies in one. The first, called Fright House in a pre-meta meta way, is about devil worshippers covering up suicides. The second, Abaddon, is the worst version of Suspiria ever made. That's not to say that the films aren't without some charm. I just don't want you thinking you're getting Jean Rollin here. Or even Ruggero Deodato.Let me try and explain what I just watched.Fright House starts Paul Borghese as Detective Les Morane, a man who just lost his brother to suicide. His brother was a psychic or liked tarot cards or was just weird — it's never really established, but it doesn't matter, because he's dead. However, the longer the film goes on, he more it seems that everyone in town is in on the Satanic cult action, letting family members die to make their lives better. "Grandpa" Al Lewis appears as Captain Levi, pretty much ad-libbing his way through his part. Turns out that he's behind the whole thing, so if you ever wanted to see one of your favorite childhood characters become an evil cult leader, I can point you to this film. There are also a lot of 60's style Satanism scenes, with nude women and pentagrams, if you're into that sort of thing. Yeah, you're into that sort of thing.Oh — I almost forgot. There's also copious non-Satanic nudity and a scene where frat boys fake a suicide and break into a long acted out sing-a-long of Michael Jackson's "Bad." There are also many digs at psychotherapy and a grave with Jason Vorhees name on it. It's 57 minutes of your life that will feel like 57 hours.Abaddon was also directed by Len Anthony (Murderous Intent and Vampires). It stars Duane Jones — yes, Ben from Night of the Living Dead and Dr. Hess of Ganga & Hess. He plays either a police detective or a sorcerer. According to an IMDb review, the film was shot at Long Island's SUNY, where Jones taught acting, hence his participation.Anyways, the film takes place at The Abaddon School (no Tanz Dance Academy, trust me) where people go to learn music. Or sing. Or act. It's never really established. The owner, who no one ever sees, has found the fountain of youth and has to pay a terrible price for it. That price means demonic toilets eat people after they have sex.Both movies end with a twist so bad that M. Night Shyamalan laughed.Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/10/18/fright-house-1989/

"Fright House" is a thoroughly lame and uninspiring anthology.**SPOILERS**Breaking into a supposedly-abandoned house, several teenagers are adorned with tales of the deadly and supernatural.The Good Stor(ies): Fright House-Uncovering a gruesome murder, Detective Les Morane, (Paul Borghese) becomes more distraught with his relationship with fiancée Debbie, (Robin Michaels) following the suicide of his brother. Taking up the issue with his teacher Dr. Victoria Sedgewick, (Jennifer Delora) about some insight into the situation, and it leads him into contact with a Satanic cult that lives on the nearby school campus and is preparing for a blood sacrifice that will put them all in danger and forces them to put an end to the shenanigans going on. There's some nice stuff here. The main area does have a pretty nice atmosphere around it, as it does look like a sacrificial altar where this kind of activity would take place, with the white-clothed altar, skulls, candles, cobwebs and pentagrams adorning everything in sight. That it also manages to house the coven of nude women which are pretty much shown through the film through random shots of these women chanting from the very start of the segment, that are plotting to open the Gates of Hell after making some more human sacrifices is perhaps the best thing about it, since it allows for a pretty nice stream of nudity to take place throughout the time. That's pretty much it for it's good parts, though, as there is one fundamental flaw running through it. That has to deal with the really tired and boring plot, where a detective is determined to get to the bottom of a rash case of college student suicides since his kid brother was one of the victims. That means that pretty much most of this story has the detective blubbering about how he should have listened. When he's not doing that, he's following up on leads that will severely test most forms of patience, since it's just nothing that's all too interesting or even logical. One of them is a lame one where he finds out that all the dead students had been seeing the same psychiatrist, a lead which goes no where fast. Then he links the case to an old mansion that no one is involved in until it's accidentally discovered, but it's all pretty much just plain boring to sit through.The Bad Stor(ies): Abadon-At the Abadon Estate, Madeline Abadon, (Jackie James) finds that it has been turned into an asylum for the emotionally damaged. When she manages to meet up with Helen, (Vicki Richardson) another student at the facility, she manages to hear a strange story about Ms. Registrar, (Candace Hamilton) one of the teachers on campus bearing demonic powers that grant her the ability to retain a youthful appearance despite never aging. When the students at the place start to disappear force the issue and they learn the truth, they enlist Charles Harmon, (Duane Jones) to help them combat the demonic evil on campus. There's only a few good parts here, mainly the nudity and a sequence with stop-motion blobs running around. The fact that the ending does have a really nice atmosphere with a fair amount of action. The best part, though, is the opening's demonic-toilet sequence, where a young student gets nude, putters around the dormitory bathroom, showers and then lotions up on the bed. When the boyfriend walks in and startles her, leading to an off-screen sex-scene, and when awakened by obnoxious sucking sounds, various small stuff, like books and small furniture start flying across the room and into the demonic-toilet. Eventually the sucking grows stronger, the couple are apparently sucked right off their beds and into the demonic-toilet which flushes obscenely at the end of the sequence. It's the best thing about the film as a whole. The rest of the time is spent with just a never-ending stream of boredom and extreme disappointment as there's nothing at all interesting going on. It just waits until the next time something is going on for something good to happen, and the rest is plagued by inactivity, boredom and complete lameness, which is pretty typical of the film as a whole. That wipes away pretty much everything else that happens, since it's so hard to get to the next part when nothing interesting is filling time in between them.The Final Verdict: Pretty dreadful all around, without much of anything to get it going or even make it feel like it's entertaining causes this one to drop down. Not a whole lot are even going to be entertained by this one, which makes it hard to recommend this to those only who enjoy this kind of film.Rated R: Nudity, Violence and Graphic Language

Well, I give up on this one. I tried to like it, I really did. The film has some potential: Two story feature, one about a satanic coven and the other about a demonic teacher who never gets old, sucking the life out of unfortunate coeds. Or something like that. It is low budget non-Hollywood "regional horror" that went directly to home video and remained there, and perhaps the kindest thing one can say about it is that it's incredibly hard to find, and long. You get your money's worth out of FRIGHT HOUSE as far as runtime: It's two hours more or less on the mark, one hour per story. Problem is that it feels longer.Part One concerns a snarky detective (actor/producer Paul Borghese) who stumbles upon a coven of witches looking to free their master from hell or something like that. Some bared breasts and Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis, being a sport) supply the only genuine interest. Meanwhile odd things are happening back at the local college creephouse involving human sacrifices, staged suicide jokes, and lots of bad 80's haircuts. Borghese is simply awful, the production utterly uninspired and whatever shocks or gore there is are easily missed if you get up & go to the bathroom at the wrong moment. The problem is that the consumption of beer is about the only way to make it through this and the frequent use of plumbing a by-product of such an undertaking. Too bad: If Grandpa Munster can't even liven up a movie you know it is perhaps time for a re-write.Part Two is set at what appears to be Long Island's SUNY at Old Westbury, where cast star member Duane Jones (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, GANJA & HESS, and appearing here in his last completed film before going off to barricade himself inside of the great abandoned farm house in the sky) taught acting. Perhaps this was a class assignment that he agreed to participate in, and Jones acts circles around the unknown faces in the cast just sitting up in a bed shaking off sleep. His three or four scenes are the best parts of the production aside from the Demonic Toilet sequence, which actually did generate a belly laugh: A young coed doffs her clothes, putters about a dormitory bathroom, showers and then lotions up on the bed. So far so good. Her obnoxiously sweatered boyfriend startles her in a traditional horror movie manner, they engage in offscreen fornication, and are awakened by one of those giant sucking sounds Ross Perot used to catterwall about, and sure enough various small inexpensive set props start flying across the room and into the gaping maw of the Toilet from Hell. Eventually the sucking grows stronger, the couple are apparently sucked right off their beds and into the Demonic Toilet (we only hear it happen), which flushes obscenely at the end of the sequence. Oh, the humanity.The rest of the movie is a SLOG of regional horror filmed entirely on Long Island using stock actors & actresses who again were probably appearing in this as some sort of classroom affiliation -- There is even a title card that indicates one sequence is filed at "Abandon estate" and then "Abandon estate, 75 years later", reinforcing the suspicion that this was executed by acting students rather than seasoned veterans of the craft. How the young ladies were egged into removing their clothing makes one curious in the academic standards at Old Westbury, but I digress. The film was written, produced and directed by one Len Anthony, who's only main credit to fame is for Executive Producer for 1985's DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD, a documentary on the history of -- yes -- George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD zombie films. The presence of Mr. Jones and the DOCUMENT connection reek of some sort of nepotism or familial advantage blessed upon Mr. Anthony, who's one other film credit (1987's campus based horror thriller VAMPIRES, which also features an appearance by Duane Jones) suggests that perhaps he died young or gave this up to open his own Wendy's franchise outlet. In any event he was not permitted to direct, produce or write any other horror movies after FRIGHT HOUSE, which to me might be the best thing one could say about it. This was his last movie.3/10 ... Some of the breasts are actually quite nice.

This review contains some SPOILERS. Don't read it if you plan on seeing this movie, something you should not do anyway. Taking two short movies, putting them together, and making one movie should double your pleasure, double your fun, right? It should be such a wonderful pairing that it multiplies your happiness by two, right? Well, no, actually it DIVIDES it by two-thousand! For years I wondered if `Fright House' would be an interesting movie, but I was always afraid to rent it. I was always afraid that it would be stupid. Well, finding no one who saw it and no reviews here, I finally rented it and saw it. Yes, it was stupid, but nothing could prepare me for the horror that I was about to see. Now, by saying `horror' I didn't mean this was a scary movie. By using that word, I meant that it was everything about it was pure horror to the viewing eye. Dear Readers, this movie is really terrible. I know what you are thinking. You have read the movie box and it completely sold you on the idea that any horror movie starring Al `Grandpa Munster' Lewis (as the box referred to him as) and Duane Jones `from Night of the Living Dead' will be the most frightening horror movie ever made and will scare your socks off! The fact that director Len Anthony (who?) managed to get either of these two actors in his movie is quite amazing. I will even go so far as to say that Al Lewis, who plays a police captain in the first story, turns in the best performance in the whole film, but that is because he is the only person who was obviously having fun, not taking his part seriously at all. But it is shocking how horrifying everything else in the movie is. The acting by everyone but Lewis and Jones is so bad it hurts. But wait, a great story can save a movie from it's human idiocy, right? I suppose, but if you are scouting the shelves for a good story, I advise you to pass right by `Fright House,' as BOTH stories are as insipid as they come. In the first one, a thick-necked detective is determined to get to the bottom of a rash case of college student suicides, his motivation being that his kid brother was one of the victims. Before his death, his brother had tried to warn him about weird signs he discovered that the Devil himself was about to make an appearance, but no one believed him. So through much of this story the detective is blubbering about how he should have listened. When he's not doing that, he is following up on leads that will have you following up on the schedule of what you could have been doing had you not rented `Fright House.' He finds out that all the dead students had been seeing the same psychiatrist, a lead which goes no where fast. Then he links the case to an old mansion. He goes into it the same night that a bunch of students decide to spend the night in it. They all stumble across a coven of pointlessly nude women that are plotting to open the Gates of Hell after making some more human sacrifices. This isn't a spoiler, because we get sloppily edited shots of these women chanting from the very start. This whole story is both tired and stupid, and I think they were writing this as they went along. There is a scene involving the previous owner of the mansion that makes no sense whatsoever and is never resolved.When the first story mercifully ends and the second one begins, you think the pain is over, right? It is really only beginning. The second half is even worse than the first. But honestly, I can't exactly tell you what it was really about because it made no sense at all. It had something to do with a machine that allowed a college professor to never age by sucking the life out of young students. One particular girl begins to suspect something strange going on, and mysterious Duane Jones pops up to try to save her. That's about all I can say about this story, other than stress once again that it is terrible. And they were so uncreative that they ended both stories in the same fashion. I won't say how, in case my words do not persuade you to avoid this movie at all costs, but it comes as no surprise. I am very glad that Al Lewis has been in some movies since this one (even if they aren't that good, at least they are better than this), but sadly Duane Jones passed away shortly after `Fright House' was made. In closing, I kept thinking that maybe there was a little bit of truth to the first story, where the coven of witches open the Gates of Hell. Someone, somewhere, obviously opened up the real Gates of Hell and let this movie out. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.