The Haunted House of Horror (1969)

Waste of time

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Weak horror film is mainly interesting because of how closely the plot hews to the teen body count horror film formula long before the formula was firmly established a decade later with the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" films. Frankie Avalon and a group of British teens go to an old mansion where they are then killed one by one. Who is the murderer? (SPOILER ALERT!) I was really hoping it would be Frankie of Beach Party fame, but sadly it was not. Writer/director Michael Armstrong, the man who made the notorious (and poorly made in my opinion) "Mark of the Devil," delivers another weak film here. I do think this film could have been better if Armstrong got his original choice of David Bowie as the killer. Unfortunately AIP felt Bowie would clash with Frankie. Too bad. That might have made this a much more memorable of film.

I'll be totally honest and admit straight away that I hoped for this flick to be A LOT better… I'm a sucker for British horror movies from the late '60s/early '70s period, especially if they have such juicy sounding titles like "The Haunted House of Horror" and if they are produced by the underrated Tigon Company that also made the fabulous genre masterpieces "Witchfinder General" and "Blood on Satan's Claw". In terms of plot synopsis and setting, this one differs a lot from the usual type of contemporary Brit-horror, considering it's not a Gothic period piece or a re-imagining of a classic monster movie, but in fact a sort of pioneer slasher movie in a haunted house setting! That's quite unique already, and then "The Haunted House of Horror" also gets a couple of extra points for originality because the lead characters are a mixture of hippie teenagers and old-fashioned stern police investigators. More than enough reason for this film to be a criminally neglected horror gem – I thought – and thus I didn't pay too much attention to the overall low rating and negative reviews around here. Well I still stand behind the points I raised for originality, but sadly I do have to acknowledge that it is a boring film with a very illogical plot! First of all let me state that the brief plot description mentioned on the film's IMDb page isn't accurate at all… "Teenagers gathered in an old mansion are being murdered one by one. The survivors must discover who among them the killer is before he finishes off everybody". Yeah, right… Whoever wrote that two-line summary clearly didn't watch the movie! Quite a lot of relevant things happen long before the teenagers gather in the old mansion, they certainly aren't murdered one by one and they do not actively attempt to unmask the killer. Are these unimportant little details? Perhaps, but I don't think so… The film starts very 'hippie-sixties' like, with some guy going on a lunch break date with a blond girl, but during a private house party later that day he is much more interested in a brunette girl. One of the other hipsters at the party is the famous '50s crooner Frankie Avalon and he is somewhat the leader of the pack. They all get bored at the party and then one of them has the luminous idea to go and spend the rest of the night in an abandoned and allegedly haunted mansion. The double-dating guy then viciously gets stabbed to death, but instead of warning the police, Frankie Avalon convinces all the others to cover up the murder instead. I seriously fail to understand why they keep this murder secret!?! One of these dumb hippies should have stood up and said: "No, Frankie Avalon, not informing the police is a very dumb and pointless idea!" The further guessing along for the culprit's identity is reasonably compelling, with a couple of clichéd prime suspects (like a pervert stalker) and other intrigues, but the whole cover-up sub plot makes everything implausible. The body count is frustratingly low, but the on screen bloodshed is definitely sick and brutal for sixties' standards. Overall, I certainly don't regret watching "The Haunted House of Horror" but surely it could have been a lot better. This was the first long-feature film of the promising director Michael Armstrong. One year later he delivered the magnificent exploitation classic "Mark of the Devil", but after that he strangely stopped making films.

i really enjoyed this movie.why?because it is FUN to watch. movies don't have to be deeply meaningful or classy or poetic..more important than all that is that it is fun to watch.i don't mean comedy-funny, i mean a flow, a structure and a story that doesn't make you snooze. (maybe some actors that actually can act, but thats a dying breed)this movie is entertaining and fun, sure the story is thin and the middle drags a little, but it really doesn't matter..you got frankie avalon, a dark old house and some outrageous 6oties hairdos, what more can you want?

Haunted House of Horror, The (1969) * 1/2 (out of 4) Frankie Avalon and a group of friends are bored hanging out in an apartment so they go walk around a haunted house when one turns up butchered. Was a member of the group or perhaps a ghost? The only way to find out is by the group going back there at a later date to see once and for all. This British film from the Trigon Productions has a few interesting items but for the most part this thing is deadly dull from start to finish. I have an issue with many British horror films and that's because they talk and talk and talk and don't ever know when to shut up. That curse follows this film as we get plenty of talk and most of it has nothing to do with the main plot point of the film. The subplot involves a young woman trying to break free from a married man, which seems to be more fitted for a soap opera so why on Earth throw it into a slasher movie? The performances are okay for this type of film with Avalon leading the way and I'm sure he was the first to cash his paycheck. The film is great to look out with the wonderful colors and set design but you still need a story to make all of that count. There are a couple very bloody murders, which I was surprised to see and I'll give the filmmakers credit for the ending, which doesn't go the way you might expect. Even with that said this is a very hard film to get through because of how dull it is.