The House Of Lost Souls (DVD)

...a suspenseful horror film from the Vipco Collection. I picked it up in HMV for £5.99 after spotting it while browsing.

Five geologists - Carla, Mary, Kevin, Marla and Massimo, and someone's little brother (I forget whose!) - Gianluca, are on their way back from a field trip when they find the road is blocked after a mudslide. It is late at night and cold, turning back would mean a long detour, until one of the gang remembers passing ...
...Pulling up, they discover the building is closed and looks slightly dilapidated although they spot the owner of the establishment through the glass and beg him for rooms for the night.

The owner leads them in and hands them keys for three rooms where they all settle in for the night, until strange happenings in the middle of the night disturb their sleep……

Will they all escape the House Of Lost Souls in one piece? Why ... more

Filmed in 1989 and Directed by Umberto Lenzi, this is a suspenseful horror film from the Vipco Collection. I picked it up in HMV for £5.99 after spotting it while browsing.

Five geologists - Carla, Mary, Kevin, Marla and Massimo, and someone's little brother (I forget whose!) - Gianluca, are on their way back from a field trip when they find the road is blocked after a mudslide. It is late at night and cold, turning back would mean a long detour, until one of the gang remembers passing a sign for a hotel some way back. Cold and tired they decide to try it. Pulling up, they discover the building is closed and looks slightly dilapidated although they spot the owner of the establishment through the glass and beg him for rooms for the night.

The owner leads them in and hands them keys for three rooms where they all settle in for the night, until strange happenings in the middle of the night disturb their sleep……

Will they all escape the House Of Lost Souls in one piece? Why will the spirits not leave them alone and what is their story?

On the face of it this film sounds like a typical 'Group of kids break down and pull up at a scary mansion' cliché, and I suppose to a certain extent it is but the thing that makes it work is that the hotel is not some crumbly Addams Family style building but could be any simple European hotel (except for the strange happenings, obviously, although if you have encountered spirits hell-bent on evil in Magaluf, please feel free to correct me.) The setting is quite unremarkable - which is why you could forgive them for not realising the place was haunted when they first check in, unlike some films where you wonder how they could fail to realise this, given the fact there are lightening bolts flashing overhead and the garden grows nothing but poison ivy and the like.

The characters are on the whole likeable, if forgettable, apart from the psychic one who seems to have random visions. In fact five minutes after watching the film I couldn't remember their names and had to look them up for the purpose of the review. Although there is nothing particularly special about them, you find yourself on their side, and not eagerly awaiting the moment when they are disposed of. Except perhaps for the little kid at first, although I did feel a bit guilty about that later on.

I'm not quite sure why they had to bring in the whole thing about Carla having 'visions' and stuff, (as you do) it didn't really add anything to the story and in fact didn't quite fit in, bringing up the question of why they didn't do a bunk in the middle of the night rather than stay there, having had some clue that bad things are going to happen there.

The special effects are not that special to be honest, orange blood and unrealistic decapitated heads, but then again it was the eighties. And as I was expecting it to be a cheap horror film anyway, I didn't really feel let down by this.

On the whole, I loved this film, the storyline was pretty standard fare really, nothing particularly original about it but it was uncomplicated and easy to follow, just what you want at two o'clock in the morning! Having said that though, there were a couple of things that left you thinking 'Huh?' For example, when two of the lads went into the village and discovered the history behind the building and realised they may be in danger, why on Earth did they then go to the library to do some research instead of getting the hell out of there? And when the girls felt so unsafe why did one choose to stay in the car by herself? And would you really climb into a dusty bed with manky sheets to go to sleep?

Although the film is filmed by an Italian director and has mainly Italian cast, when watching the actors' mouths, it looks as if sometimes they are talking English and sometimes talking Italian. Which left me wondering why it wasn't just all in one language? The whole thing was then dubbed over very badly in an American accent. Although I would prefer to watch a film in the original language with English subtitles, I found this film was still very watchable, not too distracting. Saying that though, I wouldn't pay any more for than the £5.99 for it.

It runs for a just-right 89 minutes and is rated 18- I don't know why.

Extras - No extras really, only trailers for other films in the Vipco series 

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