Wednesday 28 September 2011

House 2: The Second Story

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Year:1987
Country of origin:USA
Director:Ethan Wiley
Genre:Horror comedy
Starring:Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093220/
Tagline:Doom with a View
Favourite line:John: "Who's your friend? Bozo the Clown?" Charlie: "Bozo the Death Machine"

More of the same really, even though there is no particular link with the first movie.

A young man inherits a rather sinister looking house, moves in with his girlfriend and starts investigating his genealogy. He discovers that his Grandad was the proud owner of an ancient Aztec crystal skull - yep, that old chestnut! - and takes the rather bizarre decision to exhume his corpse from the local graveyard. He opens the casket, finds the skull, but is promptly attacked by the corpse inside.....
And it carries on in this vain throughout, mingling comedy with genuine weirdness (exploring a prehistoric forest and discovering a nest with the crystal skull, only for the huge chick to refuse to release it, a dog crossed with some form of giant centipede etc).

The comedy may not hit the money all the time, but it is an improvement on the first, and there is one moment of comic gold involving an electrician and an alternate dimension, which I won't spoil.
In a nice touch, the electrician is played by John Ratzenberger, Cliff from Cheers, Norm's partner - who just happened to be in the first House movie. I'm sure that was deliberate.
Overall then, funny in places, never scary, though it has some nice visuals at times, this is pure 80's fodder.

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