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| Wednesday, December 19, 2007 05:35 PM |
| On the Viewer: The House that Dripped Blood |
 by Fëanor |
This is a very silly Hammer horror anthology that I'd been wanting to see for a long time, mostly because the cast is so amazing: we're talking Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland, and the third Doctor himself, Jon Pertwee! Oh, and it was written by Robert Bloch. Unfortunately, pretty much none of those actors ever share the screen, and Bloch's writing leaves something to be desired.
The frame story is about a big-city detective who comes to a small English town in search of a missing actor. The policeman there tells him there's something... funny about the house the actor rented, and proceeds to tell him about two other cases that centered around the house. Story one stars Denholm Elliott as a famous author of horror novels who moves into the house with his wife in the hopes that living out in the country will help cure his writer's block and allow him to complete his latest work. It works - but too well. He becomes so obsessed with the killer in his book that he starts seeing him in real life. [spoilers]In fact, the killer is a frustrated actor who's sleeping with the author's wife, and the two of them have cooked up a scheme where it will look like the author went crazy and killed his psychiatrist, and the author's wife and the boyfriend will get all his money. Problem is, the actor gets too into his role, and ends up killing the psychiatrist, the author, and the wife before he's taken in by the police.[/spoilers]
Next up is a story starring Peter Cushing as a retired bachelor who takes the house out in the country so he can focus on all the things he couldn't do while he was working - like reading and listening to music. But when an old friend (Ackland)comes to visit, both of them find themseleves mesmerized by the female figure at the wax museum in town, because she greatly resembles a woman that both of them loved and lost. Ultimately their shared obsession leads to murder! [spoilers]The figure of the woman in the wax museum is, of course, a real woman - the dead wife of the creepy owner of the museum, whom he killed because she was seeing another man. Now she continues to attract men to her even after death, and the museum owner kills each of them, one after the other - including Cushing and his friend.[/spoilers]
After hearing these two stories, the big-city cop is of course still not impressed and demands to see the real estate agent who's been selling the house, in the hopes that he can learn more about the actor. Instead, the agent has yet another story to tell him, this one starring Christopher Lee as a single father who moves into the house apparently to keep his young daughter completely isolated from the outside world. He brings in a young woman to tutor the girl, and at first it seems, both to the audience and the tutor, as if Lee's character is being unnecessarily cruel and strict with his daughter, but as it turns out, he has good reason! [spoilers]In fact, the daughter is a witch, like her mother before her, and ends up killing her Dad with a little voodoo doll.[/spoilers]
After this story, we finally get to hear about the actor, who is played by Jon Pertwee. This story is the most comical, with Pertwee playing the stuck-up actor stereotype to the hilt. He moves into the house so he can be closer to the set of his latest film, in which he plays a vampire. He's disappointed with the wardrobe they have for him at the studio and so goes to pick up something more authentic at the costume shop in town. Problem is, the cloak he gets is a little too authentic. [spoilers]It's a vampire's cloak which for some reason turns the actor into a vampire when he wears it. He realizes this, and refuses to wear it for fear he'll attack his co-star, but she puts it on and they both end up as vampires.[/spoilers]
After hearing all the stories, the big-city cop is still not convinced and demands the keys to the house so he can go check it out, even though it's late at night and the power in the house is still turned off. Dumb-ass. The real estate agent warns him, but eventually agrees to give him the keys. He enters the house, and meets his own horrible fate. [spoilers]He heads right for the basement where he finds the actor and his co-star in coffins, sleeping. They arise and attack him, and although he manages to stake one (why do vampires keep old wooden chairs in their houses?!), the other one gets him.[/spoilers]
The final epilogue to the film, delivered directly to the camera by the real estate agent, is extraordinarily silly and ineffective. Also, as you may have noticed, a number of the stories actually have very little to do with the house, and are clearly just random short horror stories that were jammed into the overarching storyline of this film to pad it out. The wax museum story is the least imaginative, as it's pretty much just like any other wax museum horror story. And it's rather irritating the way the stories are told one after the other, with almost nothing happening in the frame story except for the cop saying, "I still don't believe it," and somebody saying to him, "No, there really is something wrong with that house. Let me tell you another story..." Still, there are plenty of great actors in the film doing their best with the material, and bits of the film are quite entertaining. The Christopher Lee story might be the best one, but the Pertwee story is certainly the silliest and most fun. It's definitely not a great film, but probably a good addition to a Hammer horror cheese fest, if you're planning on having one. |
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