The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

It's 903 corpses short, 11 July 2005

A film crew is shooting a horror movie in an old, supposedly cursed house where over the years, seven people have mysteriously died. One of the crew finds an old book of spells and it looks like it would be perfect to use in some of the ritual scenes in their movie. It is reasoned that the spells in the book are better written than the script they are using. But as the book is read, the graveyard outside suddenly comes to life. Now the cast and crew are faced with real danger .

IMDb lists a running time of 90 minutes. For the first 60 of those minutes, nothing happens. Far too much time is spent on the movie within a movie. Are we supposed to be frightened by the horror movie that they are shooting? We already know that their movie isn't "real". These scares just don't work.

There are very few things to enjoy about The House of Seven Corpses. The acting is atrocious. Most of these "actors" would have trouble making a elementary school play. The score is terrible. It is very reminiscent of a 70s television series and provides no atmosphere. Speaking of atmosphere, other than a few moments at the end of the movie, there is none to speak of. Character logic is all but non-existent. Even in a movie, you expect characters to behave in a certain way. Here, I don't think I remember one scene where a character didn't choose the most illogical avenue available to them. And finally, there's those first 60 minutes of the movie that I've already mentioned. Can you say BORING?

I haven't rated The House of Seven Corpses any lower because of instances where the movie (probably by accident) actually works. My two favorite are the beginning and ending. The opening title sequence presents the deaths of the seven previous owners and may be the highlight of the movie. And, the ending scenes on the massive staircase as the zombie menaces the film crew are somewhat effective (what a ringing endorsement). Overall though, these moments aren't enough to make this a good movie.

3/10