House of Doom

A box-set of 4 Italian horror movies - House Of Clocks, Sweet House of Horrors, House of Witchcraft, House of Lost Souls - from the early 80s, all with a haunted house theme. Originally they were intended to be a TV series (Houses of Doom), but were deemed too gory for transmission, & are here presented in 'uncut' (rather than 'extreme' - i.e. still cut) versions. The gore is on the whole trashy & ludicrous (as when a child's head is torn off by a possessed washing-machine in House of Lost Souls), and is often extremely unconvincing (severed heads boiling in a pot in House of Witchcraft that look so like mannequin's dummies, & so unlike the real thing, that the viewer is confused by the response of the characters to them). Although the films gesture towards atmospheric classics like the (original) Haunting, they always become crass and garish as they go along, and are usually over-lit. Characterisation is generally flat & inept, & poor structuring deprives all of the films of much genuine suspense - for instance, in House of Clocks (probably the best of the four) we see that the elderly couple are murderous psychos right at the start, so when they later start killing the burglars (from beyond the grave) it comes as no surprise. In House of Lost Souls everyone keeps saying how cold & rainy it is, but the landscape is dry & they don't bother doing any 'I'm cold' acting (such as buttoning coats right the way up when outside). On display are cack-handed 'reimaginings' of The Innocents (Sweet House of Horrors) & The Shining (House of Lost Souls). House of Clocks is the most original of the four, & probably the best-paced one, tho all of them have a certain trashy entertainment value. Bad films from the pens & lenses of the makers of, amongst other things, such classics as Cannibal Holocaust, & as such, these are a guilty pleasure. The sort of collection you'd do better to borrow from a friend than buy yourself, as you'll be unlikely to want to watch any of these more than once. On the plus side all are presented in widescreen & the digital transfer is of very good quality, so they look as good as they're ever going to. No extras, except a few trailers (including one for Cannibal Holocaust).

pmcordeiro escreveu:Queria comprar isto, mas parece que desapareceu em todo o lado, só há os filmes individuais.

siebenburgen escreveu:

pmcordeiro escreveu:Queria comprar isto, mas parece que desapareceu em todo o lado, só há os filmes individuais.

essa caixa já tem uns aninhos ...viste no ebay?

pmcordeiro escreveu:Bolas não encontro isto em lado nenhum.