House of Evil (1968)

Directors:

Jack Hill
Juan Ibáñez

Writers:

Jack Hill (writer)
Edgar Allan Poe (story)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery

Plot:

Relatives of a recently deceased man meet at his eerie castle for a reading of the will. They encounter a sinister piano player who turns out to be a toy maker, and his toys are imbued with murderous intentions. |

Plot Keywords:

Madness | Mansion | Murder | Curse | Spirit

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Matthias Morteval
Julissa	...	Lucy Durant
Andrés García	...	Beasley
José Ángel Espinosa 'Ferrusquilla'	...	Dr. Emery Horvath (as Ángel Espinoza)
Beatriz Baz	...	Cordelia Rash
Quintín Bulnes	...	Ivar Morteval
Manuel Alvarado	...	Morgenstern Morteval
Arturo Fernández	...	Fodor
Carmen Velez
Felipe de Flores
Fernando Saucedo
Estuardo Mora
José Luis G. de León
Victor Jordan
José Antonio Garcia

Also Known As:

Dance of Death
Macabre Serenade

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

Mexico | USA

Language:

Spanish | English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG (video rating) | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Mexico

Company:

Azteca Films

Trivia:

Shot in 1968, this film didn't receive a mainstream theatrical release until 1978.

Quotes:

Matthias Morteval: [speaking to a portrait of his father] Somewhere in our garden, father, the evil weed has sprung up again. If God will give me strength in the twilight of my life, I promise you that I will find that weed and tear it from our soil with all its evil seed...
[extremely long pause]
Matthias Morteval: ...Once and for all.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Annie Hall (1977)

A shrinking of the brain

Felt mine was while watching this...but it seems that is the reason for insanity running in the family in this film. Not that makes a lot of sense anyway, as others have mentioned, this was one of Karloff's last films and it's only his screen presence that lends it any credibility at all. It's sad that all of the great legends of the horror films in the sound era were eventually reduced to starring in low grade rubbish like this. Marginally, Boris did get off slightly better than poor old Bela Lugosi but not by much.

Boris does his best and give him credit for trying to hold this mess together. The strident background music doesn't help and distracts from any lucid moment. Apart from Boris, the rest of the Mexican cast are dubbed into some strange, clipped, English monotone that is reminiscent of the type used in porn films of the late seventies.

At a guess I think it's Edgar Allen Poe's 'House of Usher' that this is taken from but you'd be hard pressed to find a great deal of Poe in the finished article.

Still, there are far better films out there with Boris Karloff at his best, search them out and give this a wide berth, unless you want the curse of the 'shrinking brain' too!