The story of orphan Seraphime Monge returning to his home village after World War I to discover that the history of his family is soaked in blood and that in order to find redemption and break the spell he must revenge the death of his parents is quite interesting. It comes on the line of classic French novels like these of Alexandre Dumas, with 'justiciers' taking revenge over generations. Unfortunately the cinema making of this film is not up to the story, the director seems undecided whether to make a horror Edgar Alan Poe type of story or rather a romantic Alexandre Dumas epic. Despite some fair acting the movie never takes off, scenes that had a lot of dramatic potential are missed, and the usage of off-screen dialog spoils the whole first half of the film, just to be completely forgotten in the second one. I read on IMDb that the film was quire successful in the 80s, to be completely forgotten a few years later and unfortunately this is quite justified.
Review of La maison assassinée
