The House That Dripped Blood dvd movie.|
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List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 Features • Color • Dolby • DVD-Video • Subtitled • NTSC In Theaters : March, 1971 DVD Release : 28 October, 2003 |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Half a really great movie |
| While it has one of the best casts of any of the Amicus five-in-one (or portmanteau) films, "The House That Dripped Blood" cannot be considered the best of the genre, even though some of the parts are excellent. In fact, this film might be the horror equivalent of the proverbial "Little Girl With a Little Curl:" When it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid...or at least uninspired. On the good side is the entire wraparound set up, that of a police inspector investigating the disappearance of an actor in the house, and then learning of its checkered history. On the bad side, I've watched this film repeatedly and I STILL can't made any sense of the final revelation of WHY the house is doing these things. Also on the good side is a dynamite opening episode featuring Denholm Elliot as "young" writer from London (he still manages to pull the role off despite being in his fifties) whose horror novels appear to be coming to life, and a middle chapter with Christopher Lee as the remote father of a very strange little girl, at odds with a sympathetic new nanny. Though it's brief, this is one of Lee's best performances, exploiting his talent for playing fearful men, which he does as well as playing fearsome ones. Probably the worst element, unfortunately, is the one starring Peter Cushing, in which he plays a man who becomes obsessed with a figure in a wax museum. Cushing was a master at rising above material, but here he gets bogged down with wobbly character motivation and a subtext that keeps trying to emerge but never does. The conclusion is pretty predictable (particularly if you've seen the poster art, which is reproduced on the DVD cover), but still confusing. The last segment, starring Jon Pertwee as a pompous horror film star known for playing vampires who gets more than his contract called for, is the best known one, but not the best. It is played for camp comedy and is quite amusing, but at the expense of the story. One of its best bits is a cameo by undersung British actor Geoffrey Bayldon, made up to resemble Ernest Thesiger in "Bride of Frankenstein," as a strange antique shop owner. Devotees of vampire lore will find any number of no-nos in this sequence (not to mention highly visible flying wires). Nearly all of the Amicus portmanteaus are mixed bags, but this one seems to be more mixed than most. Wouldn't it be spectacular if somebody could assemble the "Severed Hand" segment from "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors," "Living Doll" from "Torture Garden," the Denholm Elliot segment here, the Richard Todd/Barbara Parkins opener from "Asylum," the Peter Cushing "Valentine's Day" chapter of "Tales From the Crypt" and the Terry-Thomas/Glynnis Johns segment from "Vault of Horror" into one super-portmanteau? | |
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