House of the Damned (1963)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Maury Dexter

Writer:

Harry Spalding (writer)

Release Date:

March 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

"We Dare You To Enter"

Plot:

An architect and his wife are staying in an empty castle in California. They are joined by an unhappily married lawyer and his wife...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Haunted House

Cast

Ron Foster	...	Scott Campbell
Merry Anders	...	Nancy Campbell
Richard Crane	...	Joseph Schiller
Erika Peters	...	Loy Schiller
Dal McKennon	...	Mr. Quinby
Georgia Schmidt	...	Priscilla Rochester
Stacey Winters	...	Nurse
Richard Kiel	...	The Giant
Ayllene Gibbons	...	The Fat Woman
John Gilmore	...	The Legless Man
Frieda Pushnik	...	The Legless Girl

Runtime:

62 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Associated Producers (API)

Damned be this film for wasting my precious hour!

"House of the Damned" is a short (barely over one hour) and definitely not-so spooky haunted house chiller from the early 60's that remains extremely slow-paced and never really reaches any atmospheric highlights. There are no famous names in the cast or crew list, so maybe if this were a Hammer or William Castle production; it might have been a bit more appealing. It's actually not even a full-blooded haunted house movie, as none of the menace ever comes out from the house. Usually in this sort of films, like for example "The Haunting", the house is introduced almost like one of the main characters, but here it's just a piece of decor. An architect and his wife are sent up to a remote house on a hill after the previous tenant mysteriously vanished without leaving a message. The owner and his attractive foreign wife come to meet the couple the next day and, for a short while, the script resembles more of a melodramatic soap opera instead of a supernatural thriller. Perhaps the "Damned" in the title refers to the poor suckers, like me, who were tricked into watching this dull nonsense and expected something good. Eventually there does appear to be something wrong with the house; namely unknown residents with hairy hands that like to steal keys. Then, suddenly and out of the blue, the architect couple also discovers that the place once was inhabited by a crazy old lady who now resides in a sanatorium. Whatever twist the screenplay attempts to bring forward, it's totally useless. The ambiance simply isn't as compelling as it should be. Nothing to recommend here. Even Disney's "The Haunted Mansion" is at least a dozen times more disturbing than this. The climax, which comes abrupt and totally random, is too insane for words and left me staring at a black screen for certainly five whole minutes after the finishing of the closing credits! What the hell was that? Was I too stoned, drunk, temporarily unconscious or did I REALLY witness this ending? It's the most nonsensical, random, unworldly, grotesque, irrelevant and deranged twist-ending ever! The Oscar for dementia inarguably goes to "House of the Damned".