House of the Long Shadows

"House of the Long Shadows" (1983) starring Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Carradine and Desi Arnaz Jr. is a comedy / horror movie about a man who on a bet goes to a haunted house to write a book.

Kenneth Magee (Arnaz), an American writer places a $20,000 bet that he can write a novel in one night.  In order to concentrate and get in the mood, he goes to an old mansion without electricity to write the novel.  It is supposed to be deserted but soon after his arrival in the dusty old house, other people start arriving.  Who are the assorted characters that keep coming out of the stormy night?  And who else has been hidden away in the house for the last 40 years?

A somewhat fun comedy / horror story that brings out all the classic horror tropes: candlelit walks through a dark, scary house, thunder and lightning, secret passageways and creepy characters.  Classic horror stars Price, Lee and Cushing join in the fun and even though not a spectacular movie, it may just be worth it to you to see these horror greats all together in one film.

Cat People

"Cat People" (1982) starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard is a remake of the 1942 classic of the same name.

Irena Gallier (Kinski) is invited to New Orleans by her long lost brother Paul Gallier (McDowell).  Shortly after arriving at his home, he disappears because he has turned into a black leopard, been on a killing spree and been captured by Oliver Yates (Heard), the curator at the local zoo.  Irena doesn't know any of this and she doesn't know what her family legacy is.  She happens upon her brother at the zoo and Oliver becomes obsessed with her and offers her a job there.

Little by little, it starts to become clear to Irena, that she will turn into a cat if she has sex with anyone.  The only way to turn back to human form is to kill.

This remake is very well done. Kinski is wonderful as the naive Irena being emotionally overpowered by her domineering brother.  There's even a scary swimming pool scene - a homage to the classic scene from the original!  This remake is bloodier than its original but only in a couple scenes and definitely more erotic.  There's also hypnotic music by David Bowie.  Overall a very good remake of a classic horror movie.

Dolls

"Dolls" (1987) is a campy horror movie starring Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon & Carrie Lorraine about two groups of travelers who get stranded during a storm and end up at the mansion of an elderly doll maker and his wife.

Young Judy is traveling with her father and stepmother through the English countryside.  The stepmother is played by Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and she is delightfully cold and evil to her sweet stepdaughter.  They seek refuge from the storm at the Hartwicke's mansion and discover the elderly couple is very eccentric but welcoming and that every room is filled with handmade dolls and toys made by the man.  Judy is very intrigued by all the toys but the dolls of course are more than they seem.

Shortly thereafter, three more people arrive, mild-mannered Ralph and the two British punk rock girls that he picked up hitchhiking in the storm.  Everyone gets a meal and a room and they all settle in for the night.  The night is when everything starts coming alive, including all the dolls in the house and they aren't nice innocent dolls either, they are filled with evil!

I really enjoyed this movie!  It is campy and fun.  The Gothic English mansion is nice and eerie and having everyone end up wandering the huge house at night brings the requisite scares.  The toys are eerie and scary too.

Haunted By Her Past

"Haunted by Her Past" aka "Secret Passions" (1987) is a made for TV movie starring Susan Lucci, John James, Marcia Strassman, Robin Thomas and Finola Hughes  in which two couples vacation at a haunted colonial inn.

Eric Beckett (James) wants to surprise his wife Karen (Lucci) with a stay in the colonial town of Unionville where she has always wanted to go.  Their best friends, Rita & Charles Kamen, join them.  On the way into town, Karen sees a sign for an antique shop / inn.  She gets Eric to take a detour and they end up at an  old inn in the middle of the woods.  Karen falls in love with it and convinces him that they should stay here instead of in town.  Looking at the rooms, Karen goes through an open door into a dusty old room.  The innkeeper is shocked that they are in it as it's been kept closed for centuries and doesn't have any running water or electricity like the rest of the inn.  Karen, wanting an authentic colonial experience, finally gets the innkeeper to rent the room to them.  In the room is a giant intricately carved mirror that Karen soon becomes obsessed with.

The couples explore the nearby town that caters to its colonial past by having people walking around in costumes of the long gone era.  Back at the inn, Karen starts to act less like the prim librarian type she arrived as and more as a flirt and seductress.  Her appearance and personality changes so much her husband no longer recognizes the same woman.

Eric does some investigating and finds out that there were murders in the room where they were staying and that's why the innkeeper had it closed off.  Meanwhile, Karen starts to see and communicate with a ghost in the mirror who soon informs her of her connection to the town and a curse that may ruin her and Eric's relationship forever.

A somewhat fun made for TV movie like something you might find on Lifetime. It's enjoyable to see Susan Lucci in her evolution from prim and proper to sexy and dangerous.

The Howling

"The Howling" (1981) starring Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Belinda Balaski, and Dennis Dugan  is a classic werewolf movie from the 80's.

Karen White (Wallace) is a TV news reporter who goes undercover to try to interview a serial killer who has agreed to meet with her.  After the encounter turns disastrous, Karen is traumatized by the experience and a self-help guru, Dr. Waggner (Macnee) sends her to his community called the Colony on the California coast.  She goes with her husband Bill and on the drive there hopes the people there aren't too weird.  Little does she know how weird they really are!

The residents of the Colony are not what they first appear and Karen will soon find this out.  Her friend from work, Terry Fisher (Balaski) is researching the serial killer and she is soon called up to the Colony by Karen to join in the mayhem.

"The Howling" is a fun 80's horror movie that has a bit of blood but is not overdone.  The werewolf transformations are extremely unique to this film and they also don't play by all the same rules that have been established in other werewolf movies.  The movie is filled with spooky atmosphere including lots of foggy forest shots and wolves howling in the night.  The musical score is also unique in that it uses an organ which really fit with the film's feel. There is also just enough humor to offset the horrorific situation the characters are going through.  I really enjoyed finding this gem of a film!

The Boogens

"The Boogens" (1981) starring Rebecca Balding, Fred McCarren, Jeff Harlan and Anne-Marie Martin is a slow burn horror movie about a group of young adults who rent a home in the mining town of Silver City, Colorado and find the town overrun with vicious creatures.

Trish and Jessica are a couple of college friends who are taking a winter break in Colorado before they go off and start their careers.  They are renting a house with Jessica's boyfriend Roger and his friend Mark.  Roger and Mark are working with a small crew to reopen a local silver mine that has been closed for a hundred years since a major disaster closed it.  Reopening the mine turns out to be a major mistake for the entire town as the old mine reaches far under the town and even under the houses and into our favorite characters' basement!

This is a fun old fashioned 80's horror movie.  We have our young people that just want to have some fun but horrors from this town's past will change that; an old man who remembers the original mining accident from stories from his father and doesn't want the mine reopened; a dog that is a real scene stealer; creepy creatures that we know are lurking in the dark shadows of the house but we don't see for the longest time until their final reveal and the exciting conclusions of the film.  "The Boogens" has a lot of suspenseful atmosphere that will keep you creeped out!  I enjoyed discovering this movie which has recently been released on Blu-ray.

This House Possessed

"This House Possessed" (1981) is a TV horror movie starring Parker Stevenson, Lisa Eilbacher, Joan Bennett. A possessed (or should we say possessive) house lures an 80s pop singer and his nurse to it and tries to keep everyone else away!

Gary Straihorn (Stevenson) is a pop rock singer who collapses onstage of exhaustion.  At the hospital during his recuperation he meets nurse Sheila Moore (Eilbacher) who he takes a liking to.  He convinces his agent (Slim Pickens) that he needs more time to rest and write some new songs so he hires Sheila as his private nurse and off they go in no direction in particular (or so they think).  Little do they know that an isolated and empty house in Rancho Santa Fe, CA is watching them through its security system and using some unknown supernatural powers.  

The couple ends up in Rancho Santa Fe, of course, and take a liking to it.  The real estate agent shows them the house just outside of town and they both fall in love with the giant modern looking home that keeps itself clean and has unbreakable windows.  Sheila feels like she knows the place but can't explain why.

Shortly after moving in, things start to get weird.  There's a garden hose that seems to come alive and chase off some trespassers.  There's a voice calling "Margaret" in the night.  And there's always the house watching them through the internal security system.   Gary and Sheila are enjoying the house and the isolation and are even starting to get romantic feelings toward each other.  

While in town, Sheila runs into the disheveled Rag Lady (Bennett) who calls her Margaret and keeps asking her why she came back.  She then gathers up her rag tag shopping cart full of bags and returns to her hoarder cabin.  Sheila goes to the library and tries to find out more about the house and the librarian promises to look into the house's history and the deaths she knows occurred there long ago. 

Later, Gary's friend (and sometimes more) Tanya stops by to stay and help in Gary's recovery.  Sheila is a bit jealous with this turn of events.  The house is too.  Needless to say, Tanya doesn't stay long after an incident of being trapped in a blood spurting shower!  Then there's the other visitors that house doesn't want, including the librarian who has some info on the house she's uncovered and who comes to a crushing and fiery end at the house's gate!

We later discover that Sheila's lost first seven years of her life before being sent to an orphanage were spent in this house and the house has always wanted her back.  It will also do everything within its power to keep her there. Will Sheila be able to break free from this haunted and possessive house?  Will she and Gary be able to enjoy life together?  Will we ever find out who or what exactly is haunting this house?

"This House Possessed" is one of my favorite made for TV movies.  It's creepy, not too graphic and a bit cheesy (especially Parker Stevenson's singing)!  The house itself is an amazing site - not the classic old haunted house at all! It's an enjoyable movie that may just remind you of those lazy Saturday afternoons sitting at home and catching a good horror movie on TV.  

The Gate

"The Gate" (1987) starring Stephen Dorff, Christa Denton, Louis Tripp. Suburban children accidentally release demons from a gate to hell they discover in their back yard.

When their tree house gets hit by lightning and the tree comes down, Glen (a very young Stephen Dorff) and his friend Terry discover a hole in the back yard.  Glen cuts himself and blood drops down into the bottomless hole starting a chain of events that could end the world.

The parents are out of town and teenage sister, Al, is babysitting.  Of course she throws a big party and lots of teens in 80s apparel have fun and end up telling ghost stories and doing some psychic tricks that get out of hand.  Meanwhile, the gate to hell opens more and more as it gets more sacrifices.  Eventually mini demons pour out of the hole and attack everyone in the house. 

"The Gate" is a pretty good story about kids fighting evil and trying to save the world.  But Glen and his sister will have a lot of explaining to do when the parents get home!

The Shining

"The Shining" (1980) directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers is one of my all time favorite horror movies.

Jack Torrance (Nicholson) is hired to be the Overlook Hotel's caretaker for the off season. The hotel is a large hotel in the mountains of Colorado and it is isolated from the rest of the world during the snow season. Wife, Wendy (Duvall) and son Danny (Lloyd) join him to live as the hotel's "only" occupants for the 6 months it is closed. The hotel has a violent history of one of the past caretakers succumbing to cabin fever and killing his family. It is also said to be built on Indian burial grounds.

When the family arrives on closing day, they are shown around the hotel and introduced to some of its staff that will be leaving that day. They meet Dick Hallorann (Crothers), the chef, who tells little Danny that they both have what his grandmother calls "the shining", the power to communicate without speaking and to see things that others can't. Danny's shining is often manifested through his imaginary friend Tony who lives in Danny's mouth and talks out of his finger and Tony has already shown him some disturbing visions of the Overlook hotel and room 237 which Dick tells Danny to stay out of.

The Torrance family settles in for the winter in to the enormous hotel. Jack tries to write his long anticipated novel, Wendy cares for the family and increasingly picks up the hotel chores that Jack was hired to do and Danny explores and plays in the hotel. Increasingly sinister things start to happen though. Danny encounters twin girls who stand and watch him before he suddenly sees them surrounded by blood. While driving his Big Wheel through the hotel's corridors, he stops in front of room 237 and is drawn by something inside. Jack, a recovering alcoholic, begins talking to a bartender that isn't really there in the hotel's Gold Room and meets the caretaker, Grady, who killed his family. Wendy feels more and more isolated as her husband becomes more remote and erratic and she is left to care for the family and the hotel.

The movie is one of the most visually stunning horror movies ever made. The picturesque hotel in the mountains turns sinister and cold once the snows envelop it. The interiors of the hotel are immense and add to the mystery of the place. The patterns Kubrick uses in the interior designs add to the puzzle that is the hotel. The film is shot at angles and in ways that add to the tension that builds throughout the movie. What could be more creepy than a family of three living in a huge hotel, isolated from the rest of the world and suddenly finding there are supernatural things happening in different rooms and in random corridors. The evolution of Jack's madness creeps up on the family and the viewer. Every time I watch "The Shining" I am thrilled by the claustrophobic world it creates and the scary feeling it invokes. This is a must see movie if you haven't seen it and a favorite to enjoy over and over again.