The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Its hard to describe just how fascinating this movie is. Its a horror movie that has the elements of a horror movie, and somehow interspersed them between the entirety of the movie. All while shooting a movie that absolutely makes no sense. Its hard not to spoil this movie, its just so entertaining to look at every scene and wonder how none of it makes any sense.The characters. I almost felt that this was wasted potential, having the horror icon Carradine not being in any way menacing, but then John Ireland swoops in like a superhero. There is not a single scene that the man fails to deliver, every line out of his mouth is a beacon of what would otherwise be unbearable monotony. Whether its directing his actors, "Your possessed, not having an orgasm!" or just being a crotchety codger, the man is a riot to watch. But nothing compares to the big twist at the end. His assistant tried to murder him by gently pushing him into an open grave, to which he responds with, mild irritation. the sheer lack of any threat, even after David reveals his evil intent and tries to push him again, perfectly mirrors the rest of the movie. The rest of the cast is forgettable, it is all about Ireland in this movie.The plot, much like the plot of the movie they are shooting, makes equally no sense. A film crew is shooting on location at an old mansion where seven murders transpired about said murders. The movie starts with a random scene where Faith Domergues character reenacts the suicide of the family member her character is portraying. This is important as the final scene they shoot sees her murdered. The movie tries to play off the the shared animosity between everyone involved in the movie, from the assistant dating the young actress, Ireland riing the cast and crew hard, and Carradine not really doing anything. Only, it doesn't really matter. None of this matters. After an hour of infighting, a zombie starts bumping everyone off in the last thirty minutes. David is revealed to be a part of the Bealy family, and also dead, and after being throne into his own grave, he comes back as a second zombie. This is not all that important either, his success as a zombie is on par with trying to push Ireland. The first zombie however, manages to kill everyone while moving with all the speed of a tectonic plate. You could almost feel his despair as he comes to his biggest weakness. A modest flight of stairs. Probably the best scene not focusing on Ireland is when Domergues discovers the body of her dead cat in the middle of a field during a shoot that apparently no one took notice to when they set up the shot. Nothing matters, the only take away is that Carradine has a big scene of reading a book, getting distracted, and getting back to his reading.I really can't believe how much fun I had watching this movie. I pent a good three minutes trying to figure out whether a black spot on a mirror was a problem with the remastering or something that wasn't supposed to be seen in the final print. I marveled at the compete inanity of the meta narrative, where Carradine explained the fates of each family member only for most of t to be forgotten by the end of the movie and only three of them being reenacted by the ghoul. This is a good movie to grab a pint, shut your head off and laugh at the complete inanity of life.

"The House of Seven Corpses" follows a film crew making a movie at a haunted mansion where seven mysterious deaths occurred under varying circumstances over the course of its history. Through the re-enactment of rituals in the film, the crew brings about evil forces that threaten the lives of everyone involved.Before you let the mass of IMDb reviews lambasting this film put you off from giving it a spin, I have to say that, at least as far as mid-'70s supernatural horror flicks go, "The House of Seven Corpses" is not nearly the disasterpiece that it's been painted as. The opening credits play over filmed re- enactments of the seven deaths that occurred in the titular house, ranging from grim suicides to murders, each pausing on a still frame of the dying subject—it's an unsettling opening, and perhaps one of the unexpectedly eeriest credit sequences I've seen.The film benefits from the fact that it's a movie about the making of a movie, which affords it some inventive ground in which it can present scenes to its audience without the audience knowing full-well what is "real" and what is part of the production. It's an easy trick, but an effective and at times mind-bending one. For being a low-budget picture, it does have some nice cinematography, and the mansion locale is remarkably dreary and unsettling. There is a noticeable lull in the middle of the film, but the finale ramps up the action a bit, and it ends on an appropriately bizarre note.A wacky and routinely idiosyncratic performance from John Carradine lends the film a little bit of extra weirdness, while John Ireland plays the overbearing director, and Hollywood's golden age horror starlet Faith Domergue effectively plays an aging actress.Overall, I found "The House of Seven Corpses" to be a competent haunted house horror film. It is very much of a certain stock, and it's not groundbreaking nor perfectly crafted—but in terms of mood, it's effectively weird and atmospheric, which makes up for the nosedive it takes about midway through before breathing some life into itself before its untimely death. 6/10.

I saw this Schockley horror film a half of dozen times since the 1970's and although anyone who seen it would have to admit it very flawed, it to me was a lot of fun to watch! It is an old school type of horror film,doesn't go to far with the blood and gore and relies on spooky atmosphere, music, and sound effects! And man was that atmosphere spooky, especially the opening score! In my own personal opinion, the opening score was one of the spookiest ever in a horror film, and I have seen many! The music from the chorus, the creepy looking house and paintings, the sound effects, and showing how each Beale family member died make that intro very, very, scary! If the rest of the film was as good as the introduction this film would have been a classic, but they didn't seem to want it to be that way! But, for some reason, I still love this film and hope someday they make a remake of it, with the same atmosphere, music, sound effects and creepy mansion, this time focusing on the Beale Family and what lead to their demise!

I am honestly confused by most of these reviews and comments. There is nothing really THAT BAD about this film. It plays like an extended version of an episode of "Night Gallery." There is obvious comparisons to "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and other genre films but this film really doesn't belong in those categories. I am a fan of the 70's horror genre and did not expect much when I sat down to re-watch this film after twenty years. (DID NOT EXPECT MUCH-GOT THAT!) I would not call it boring or confusing. Too many people enjoy writing overly critical reviews of movies that were never intended to be masterpieces. Too many reviewers also feel the need to compare all movies to each other rather than seeing them for what they are really worth individually. In all of it's "stiffness" this film is still more entertaining than the CGI crap Hollywood dumps on the public in 2008!