The House of the Dead (1978) User Reviews

Where the hell did they get Alien Zone from?

[Zeegrade · 5/10 · 22 February 2010]

A decent no-frills horror anthology that begins with a cheating husband know only as Talmudge trying to locate his hotel in a taxi during a downpour. When the driver drops him off on a darkly lit street that apparently is not the correct address he drives off leaving Talmudge to fend for himself on a very wet evening. Stumbling upon a residence he encounters an elderly individual who invites him in from the rain which Talmudge nervously excepts. He learns that the old man is a mortician who seems interested in showing him some of his "clients" along with a little backstory on how they met with their respective demises. With an apprehensive Talmudge as his witness the mortician begins. The first story is a short one about a teacher that hates children (I had quite a few of them). When she arrives home she is harassed by what seem to be small children in Halloween masks who turn out to be anything but. The second story is also short and is by far the weakest of the four, concerning a man who likes to videotape himself murdering women. This story literally goes nowhere. Next is a pleasantly engaging number about two of the world's best criminologists, one from New York the other from England, engaged in a spirited investigation when one of them receives a rather cryptic note concerning murder. The ending, though no surprise, is still quite satisfying. Last is sort of an early and gore-free "Saw" as a pompous office worker who has no time for anyone else gets himself trapped in an abandoned store that has been turned into a trap complete with a wall of nails as he is held captive with only a bottle of wine occasionally rolled into his prison by a faceless person. Upon his mysterious release he is transformed into the very blight on society that he himself so loathed. When the stories are finished it is time for Talmudge's come-uppance as this is about punishing people for their sins and he is after all an adulterer to which the mortician has his coffin at the ready.

You won't recognize anybody in this movie nor will the made-for-t.v. feel instill any genuine fear while watching it. However, I do think that for the most part the stories were pretty interesting considering this was made before both "Creepshow" and "Twilight Zone the Movie" which had bigger budgets. Sadly, when one thinks of "House of the Dead" they more than likely associate it with the Uwe Boll abomination based on the video game rather than this film which is tragic. Why anyone would name this "Alien Zone" is a mystery to me as there isn't a hint of aliens to speak of. I did see the heavily edited 74 minute version as the running time on the DVD jacket said it was 100 minutes long. Twenty six minutes is a lot to cut out so who knows maybe there are aliens in that one. Might be a little too light for hard core horror fans but never the less I recommend giving this flick a shot.

It's no Creepshow, but still enjoyable

[Vampenguin · 6/10 · 30 April 2006]

What an unfortunately titled film. If it goes by House of the Dead, it inescapably gets mistaken for Uwe Boll's quote-unquote "masterpiece", and if it goes by Alien Zone it's doomed to deceive audiences into disappointment. Looking past the title however, this isn't a bad film. Though as far as I'm concerned Creepshow is and always will be the be-all-and-end-all horror anthologies, this is still a nice effort. The wrap-around story is pretty weak, though the way the stories are presented is pretty cool. Ivor Francis plays a rather creepy mortician telling the macabre stories of his "aquisitions" to a man who just had a bit of extra-marital fun.

The first story is pretty weak, about a mean spirited teacher who gets whats coming to her. The main actress is awful, the attempt at special effects is just as bad, and the story isn't all that strong to begin with.

It picks up some with the second story, which concerns a man who lures women to his apartment and films himself killing them. The main actor is pretty over-the-top, but he makes for a pretty good lunatic. Unfortunately his victims leave a lot to be desired. The story isn't very original, but it was still interesting.

Story #3 is easily the best of the lot. It's about the world's two greatest detectives teaming up on a case...or are they? The acting in this one is surprisingly good, the American detective reminded me of a cross between Al Pacino and a teacher at my school. The story was great, the ending, though obvious, was fitting....overall this was a great story.

The fourth and final story was pretty good too, though not as good as it's predecessor. It revolves around a miserable man who gets himself trapped in a building and tormented endlessly by an unseen force. The actor was decent, the plot was good and it ended well.

The closing of the wrap-around story wasn't very good...very predictable and a huge letdown after seeing two pretty good stories.

Overall, this anthology is definitely worth watching. The low budget shows, but it's entertaining and has at least a couple really good stories. It does have it's flaws though, such as terrible acting and a very weak first story, so I cant rate it too high. I recommend seeing it for yourself.

6/10

Stopping By The Mortician On A Rainy Evening

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 19 April 2011]

After a quick night of kanoodling with mistress Leslie Paxton, John Ericson is caught out in the rain, but kindly old mortician Ivor Francis allows him to get out of the cold and wet while he tells him job stories. And for Francis, being a mortician is a job he relishes.

The title Alien Zone is quite the misnomer because there are no creatures from another planet in this film. Unless you consider the perceptive Francis from another world. Because what Francis does is show him four coffins with bodies inside and tells him about how all of them got there. Apparently no one who is a client at the Francis Funeral Home ever died a really natural death.

The stories are of an uneven quality, the best being the third one which involves a couple of vain police inspectors, Charles Aidman and Bernard Fox, each thinking he's the world's best detective. The dialog is really good in that story. The others involve Judith Novgrod as a reclusive school teacher who hates kids, Burr DeBenning as a psychotic murderer, and Richard Gates as a selfish yuppie. They all get a good comeuppance in the end.

Despite a misleading title Alien Zone is not a bad anthology film and how does Ericson and his story fit into all this. Not really hard to figure out even if you don't see the film.

4 story shocker has mortician explain the deaths of his clients

[jeff-728 · 8 August 2004]

A mortician explains to a man seeking shelter from the rain how the corpses in his mortuary came to be there. There are 4 coffins and as he opens the lid of each one the movie cuts to a short story about how that person died. The first is about a teacher who hates kids. The second about a man who lures women into his home and murders them while capturing it all on film. The second has two top shelf detectives in a battle of wits to see who is the worlds leading criminologist. The fourth is about a man how doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself and is tortured by unseen forces. The man seeking shelter has unknowingly been lured to this place by his own indiscretions. Quite good though the title Alien Zone is somewhat confusing. I bought this movie under the title of House of the Dead which is much more appropriate.

Calling Dr. Bombay Emergency, Come Right Away!

[wes-connors · 2/10 · 22 June 2008]

"A man in town for a convention gets lost while trying to return to his hotel room, after seeing a woman, and ends up being taken in by a mortician to wait out a storm. To pass the time, the mortician shows the man four recently deceased people and begins to tell him how each person ended up as an occupant of one of his coffins," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

John Ericson (as Talmudge) is the man who finds refuge with mortician Ivor Francis, during the rainstorm. Mr. Francis' four stories aren't as enthralling as his characterization is appealing. Bernard Fox (as McDowal) is featured in the, passable, third story. Mr. Fox was, perhaps, most memorable the delightful witch doctor first called upon by "Samantha Stevens" on "Bewitched"; but, even "Dr. Bombay" can't save this plodding film. Charles Aidman (as Toliver) banters well with Fox.

"Alien Zone" was appropriately re-titled "House of the Dead".

Steve March, vocalizing the theme song "The Sound of Goodbye", sounds a little like his famous father.

Come in from the Rain and REST

[BaronBl00d · 4/10 · 24 November 2005]

John Ericson ventures out in the rain after having been left off by a cab at the wrong street. Soon he finds refuge in an old building with a friendly mortician that gives him tea and shows him some of his "clients." There are some easy clues early in the wrap-around story for this anthology to tell you where that story is going, especially after having just seen the man prior to getting in the cab have an adulterous pleasure period with someone else's wife. But the frame story is really just a means to allow mortician Ivor Francis to tell his stories about his clients. I always liked Francis for his calm presence and subtle humour, yet here he is given some really bad dialog but does manage to put some life into this otherwise drab little film. The problem with this, also known for some inexplicable reason as Alien Zone(I saw House of the Dead copy), is that the budget here is really minuscule and the stories, what special effects there are, and acting quality are all directly affected. Nothing is shown. I was shocked that we never even got to see the faces of the dead corpses in the coffins - now that is low budget! The first story deals with a teacher who it seems dislikes children - based on one scene of her walking from her car scowling. She then goes home and the supernatural effects of red tinting children wearing masks and wearing what appear as shark teeth begins. Truly terrifying. (Yawn.) The second story has some real bad actor lure women into his apartment so he can film them being killed. It's done in an almost comedic fashion and has virtually no substance at all. Then there is the one story that I did really like and does have a bit of budget and real actors. The third story has Charles Aidman and Bernard Fox as two great detectives out to outwit the other and become the leading criminologist in the world. This episode has some humor and clever dialog and of course both Aidman and especially Fox have acting ability. You get an idea where it is going but should enjoy it nonetheless. It ends way too abruptly though. The last story is pretty decent too as we see a man who seems to be a person that doesn't care about the society around him get locked into an abandoned building and fed on booze until he becomes a boozer like the one he snubbed earlier. Despite its ridiculous story, the effects of despair are not all that bad. Then of course there is the obvious conclusion to the frame story. This movie was cheaply made and has that real cheap feel to it, but it isn't that bad and a couple of the stories are relatively interesting and none so bad as they are not watchable.

'House Of The Dead' is a better title!

[chaypher · 5/10 · 11 August 2013]

An adulterous businessman gets lost in the rain and a mortician gives him shelter in his funeral parlour, who shows the man some of the corpses being embalmed on the premises. Each one has a tale about how they met their untimely demises: a school teacher who hates children is frightened to death; a predatory photographer who kills his unwitting subjects on-camera is eventually caught and executed; a self-inflated criminologist meets his British rival and in trying to out-do each other, discovers his nemesis is prepared to kill to be the best; and finally a selfish office worker is lured and held captive by an unseen assailant for an extremely long time but soon dies after he is inexplicably suddenly released. The man is told they all were victims of their own errant ways. When he asks about a final empty coffin, the mortician replies it is for him!

The individual stories and the main framing story are written in a very comic-book or pulp-novel way. The second one about the photographer is probably the worst one but is fortunately brief enough not to be a problem. Despite some really awful music, ropey acting, and what appears to be lighting supervised by a blind man, this collection of shorts is fairly well directed enough to be entertaining. I am confused with the movie's original title of 'Alien Zone' - there are no aliens at all in it! Clearly they were actually going for something like 'The Twilight Zone' and were meaning 'Alien' in a more literal sense, as in "unknown" rather than "being from outer-space"! Even still, it's not such a great title; 'House Of The Dead' makes more sense.

Moody, But Weak

[emilywallace-49758 · 5/10 · 23 July 2019]

If you're looking for another Tales From the Crypt or Creepshow, The House of the Dead will disappoint you pretty brutally. For all its flaws, it does have a striking low budget 1970's mood and they lay it on pretty thick, so it's hard to call the filmmakers untalented or hacks, because they clearly have talent - it just might have benefited them to have another few cracks at the script.

As with most anthologies, there's a wraparound story which is almost exactly the same as the one in Tales From the Crypt (and it would be used again, if reworked, in Tales From the Hood). A mortician tells a man 4 stories about his most recent clients.

The first story centers around a bitter schoolteacher who gets her comeuppance when she goes home for the evening. While it would help for us to see this teacher being a little bit more cruel (all she really does is yell at a kid to get away from her car and get angry at neighborhood kids for leaving their junk in her yard. Understandable.), this segment probably has the most suspense even if the pay off isn't really good. There are lots of creepy moments of the teacher wondering if she left this door unlocked or had that radio on before she left the room. It's subtle and builds tension pretty well.

The next is about a guy who kills women and films them. It's pretty dull. After that, we have the most boring of the stories with two detectives...talking...about stuff...for what seems like an eternity. The final story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's better than the previous one and involves an awful guy getting trapped in a building overnight as some supernatural force tries to drive him insane.

House of the Dead

[Scarecrow-88 · 5/10 · 11 December 2008]

An adulterer, Talmudge(John Ericson) attempting to find his hotel, instead is left by his taxi driver in the rain nearby a mortuary, it's mortician offering him refuge from the storm. While inside, our mortician relates the fates of four customers to him and we are all witnesses to what happened to them.

Low budget anthology, perhaps too cheap to really be that effective. Most of the tales presented lack strong story-telling and end way too abruptly. Clearly modeled after the Amicus chillers. I have no idea why this was called "Alien Zone." The first and second tales really leave much to be desired. A school teacher who hates children(!)finds herself besieged within her very home by those very ones she so despises. The kids(..at first wearing clown masks, evoking Michael Myers from Halloween, later carrying the appearance of possible vampiric ghouls) as they close in on their prey, cornering her as the camera distorts the frame, colors out of control, is quite thrilling, even if what leads up to it isn't. The second tale consists of a psychotic photographer who records women he kills on a movie camera. The fourth tale, which doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, displays an office employee being subjected to torture within a building complex, rooms with trap doors and walls of spikes. The wraparound story between the mortician and Talmudge won't fool anybody. Talmudge, at the beginning, is shown in bed with an unhappily married woman and inside the mortuary, he follows the mortician as he opens the coffin lids exposing the victims of the tales we watch to him(..their bodies are not shown to the viewer, but Talmudge's facial mannerisms express enough through perplexity and disgust to lend us a helping hand in how they look).

The third, and in my opinion easily far-and-away the best, is what I call, The Case of the Duelling Detectives featuring Scotland Yard's finest detective, Inspector McDowal(Bernard Fox)tagging along with New York's finest Private Investigator, Malcolm Toliver(Charles Aidman)as he pursues the identity of a specific criminal who is threatening to kill someone he knows with only a note consisting of letters cut from magazine articles as the means for solving the mystery. The two actors, Fox and Aidman, turn in delightful performances as foes, quite the egomaniacs often sparring intellectually with each other, who hurl gentlemanly insults at each other regarding which detective indeed is the very best of his profession and the result of the mystery(..although I'm sure many will know the answer)is most appropriate considering their vanity.

Alien zone without aliens.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 14 January 2010]

"Alien Zone" aka "House of the Dead" features four creepy stories told by a creepy embalmer.A man lost on his way to hotel listens to his tales.The first tale about a school teacher who hates children managed to creep me out.This nervous woman is being stalked by little children hidden behind their disturbing clown masks.The second story about serial killer of women,who enjoys filming his victims is quite boring and tedious.The stories number three and four are worth checking out.I still don't know why this film was titled "Alien Zone",because there are no aliens or galaxy invaders in it.A passable "Twilight Zone"-ish anthology.7 aliens of of 10.

Predictable TALES FROM THE CRYPT clone

[Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi · 5/10 · 9 May 2023]

Taking its basic concept and structure from TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972), this movie begins by showing a married man who, after consummating a tryst with someone else's wife while out of town, ends up stranded in the rain and then comes upon a mortician who invites him in to warm up and, as it turns out, much more.

This serves as a wrap-around tale for four stories-within-the-story, each introduced by the increasingly creepy mortician as he shows our hapless protagonist the coffins of his "clients", whom he later slips out to consider as his "acquisitions".

The stories are generally quite uneven, with the best of the lot involving a rivalry of sorts between two highly capable but vain criminologists. Unfortunately, I could predict the ending of most of these stories from a mile away, with the exception of the last in-story, and that only because it ended up giving a much less inspired account of the character's demise than expected.

As with CRYPT, there is some heavy-handed moralizing where characters are harshly punished for their ethical frailties by quasi-supernatural means. There is some attempt at humor, but nothing that will make you laugh out loud.

What saves this film somewhat is that it does have a bit of atmosphere (though less than CRYPT), which makes the movie at least watchable. Also, the director was willing to occasionally take chances on unusual cinematic devices which paid off, most notably at the end of the first in-story.

Finally, I think it is worth noting that the second in-story kind of anticipates the whole found-footage phenomenon even before the movie usually credited as being the granddaddy of this sub-genre, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980), which came out a couple years later. Both of these, however, were preceded in that regard by PEEPING TOM (1960) way earlier.

Overall, if you like 70s horror, or horror anthologies, you might like this, otherwise you should probably pass.

Nifty horror anthology

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 10 October 2018]

Adulterer Talmudge (a nicely smarmy portrayal by John Ericson) seeks shelter from the rain at a funeral home. The mortician (a pleasingly sinister performance by Ivor Francis) who runs the place relates four stories on how a quartet of people wound up as clients at the funeral home.

First yarn - Spiteful child-hating school teacher Miss Sibiler (ably played to the snarky hilt by Judith Novgrod) receives an unexpected late night visit from a bunch of kids wearing creepy masks. This tight and tense segment concludes on a truly unsettling note.

Second vignette - A happy-go-lucky misogynistic psycho films himself murdering various women. This is the weakest of the four stories because it doesn't amount to much. Fortunately, it's still watchable thanks to the infectious aplomb that Burr DeBenning brings to his merry wacko role.

Third tale - Two ace detectives compete with each other to be the world's leading criminologist. A cleverly written little delight that's given further spark and impact by the zestful acting from Bernard Fox and Charles Aidman as the radically contrasting rival sleuths. Extras points for the cool double twist ending.

Fourth segment - Arrogant and insensitive jerk Cantwell (a spot-on obnoxious turn by Richard Gates) finds himself being tormented in an empty derelict building by an unseen persecutor. It's a real pleasure to see this despicable SOB get put through the wringer as he gradually learns a painful lesson in humility and humanity.

Director Sharron Miller maintains a steady pace and adroitly crafts an appropriately spooky atmosphere in the wraparound segment that reaches a highly satisfying harsh conclusion with Talmudge paying a bitter price for his infidelity. Stan Worth's shivery score and Ken Gilb's fairly polished cinematography are both up to par. Better still, all the stories make interesting points on basic human flaws and frailties. An unjustly obscure sleeper that's well worth rediscovering.

The non-pathetic House of the Dead

[Coventry · 6/10 · 13 December 2006]

Whenever the title "House of the Dead" is mentioned nowadays, people – and horror fanatics in particular – automatically link it to that hag Uwe Boll's AWFUL video game horror adaptation about UN-frightening looking CGI zombies on an island. Another movie with the same title existed already since the late 1970's, though it's also known under the completely irrelevant title "Alien Zone", and that one is a lot better! It's a low-budget exploitation attempt to create a horror anthology similar to the contemporary successful British films, like "Tales that Witness Madness" or "Asylum", complete with a detailed wraparound story and a sinister host. Whilst on a business trip in an unknown city, a guy named Talmudge cheats on his wife and gets lost on his way back to the hotel. Since there's a heavy thunderstorm going on, a seemly friendly mortician invites him in and informs him abut the background stories of four "clients" of his. None of these horror mini-tales is groundbreaking or particularly shocking, but they all feature an admirably dark atmosphere and revolve on rather inventive topics. The first story is extremely short and introduces a lonely female schoolteacher with a clear aversion towards children. When she goes home one night, she senses a strange presence in her house and subsequently gets attacked by a large collection of eerily deformed and mask-wearing children. I'm not quite sure what the deeper meaning of this short story was, but those kids sure looked creepy! The second story is – once again – a very short reworking of the classic film "Peeping Tom", with a perverted man inviting girls to his apartment and murdering them for the eye of the camera. The tone of this segment is definitely disturbing, but it has no satisfying ending, since it just cuts back to the mortician who explains the culprit got executed for his crimes. Huh? What's the point? Then comes the third and unquestionably best chapter of "House of the Dead", about an intellectual criminologist competing with his overseas colleague of Scotland Yard for the honor of most deductive police investigator in the world. This segment has an incredibly predictable climax, but it's very enjoyable thanks to the wit dialogs and convincing on screen chemistry between actors Charles Aidman and Bernard Fox. The fourth and final segment hints at some really horrific themes, but unfortunately the elaboration is poor. It's about an egocentric man who gets terrorized by unseen forces and eventually becomes everything he detests himself. Namely a needy and filthy individual who blindly gets passed by on the streets. It's a curious little tale that definitely deserved some more plotting and perhaps a slightly longer playtime. Naturally the film ends with an unmerciful fate for Talmudge (adultery, remember…). The late 70's definitely brought forward better horror films than this, but "House of the Dead" is nonetheless a worthwhile and entertaining little chiller that offers a handful of frights and delightful genre clichés. It's a film for undemanding trash-fans.

Just Bad. I can't think of anything witty or pithy - it's just bad.

[junk-monkey · 1/10 · 30 April 2007]

A 1978 portmanteaux 'Horror' film made in Oklahoma. However bad that sounds to you - the reality is worse.

This is, apart from anything else, a very dull film. Highlights included the longest (pointless) slow zoom in on a radio sat on a toilet ever committed to film as a bad actress exited frame, got undressed off screen, put on a dressing gown and reappeared. It's pure pointless padding. You could almost hear them discussing this shot in the editing suite:

"This is a hell of a long pointless shot, I think we aught to cut away to something and cheat her coming back in."

"Are you crazy? That will be over far too fast, leave it as it is. It's filling up 45 seconds of screen time - leave it, we'll get a feature out of this yet..."

The dialogue is dreadful: leaden, repetitive, and pointless (what could hear of it - the copy I watched came as part of the 50 DVD box set called Nightmare Worlds and the print - or the transfer - is dreadful. The sound is muffled and for great periods the colour alternates between being totally washed-out, or so incredibly dark you cannot see anything on the screen. This combined with the dodgy sound did not make for easy watching.)

The whole movie has the feel of a bunch of student/ amateur shorts nailed together with a framing device to make a feature.

Don't bother.

Decent for What It Is

[Michael_Elliott · 29 August 2018]

Alien Zone (1978)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A married man (John Ericson) is having an affair with a married woman. After a night a sex, the man returns to his hotel but the taxi lets him off at the wrong place. To get out of the rain, he seeks shelter inside a house, which turns out to be a morgue. The Mortician (Ivor Francis) takes him to where the coffins are and tells the stories of the bodies inside.

ALIEN ZONE, also known as HOUSE OF THE DEAD, is an anthology film that is decent entertainment as long as you don't go into it expecting something like DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS or TALES FROM THE CRYPT. In other words, this is a low-budget movie that is mildly entertaining for what it is but there's no question that it falls well short of being a classic film.

Basically you've got the wrap-around story as well as four other stories. The first one deals with a school teacher who hates children and returns to her home and notices something is in there with her. This first story was good and the conclusion was nice as well. The second story deals with a serial killer who has a camera set up in his apartment to catch all of his action. This one here pretty much goes nowhere and ends out of nowhere with nothing much happening. The third film has a master detective trying to teach someone else how to solve crimes. The fourth and final entry has a man being tortured into drinking.

Again, none of the four stories are great but each of them are entertaining enough to keep the viewer interesting in what's going on. The film clocks in at just 80-minutes so there's really not too much time spent with any of the stories. The longest is the third one with the detective and it's actually the weakest as it's pretty predictable. I'd argue that all of the stories are predictable but for a "B" type of movie everything is decent enough.

ALIEN ZONE isn't a masterpiece and it's certainly flawed at times but as long as you're just looking for some cheap entertainment there's some to be found here.

Low Budget Nonsense

[Hitchcoc · 3/10 · 16 March 2007]

This is just an excuse to present some badly produced mini-films. The vehicle is an undertaker who is setting a guy up. This guy has been cheating on his wife and deserves anything he gets. Unfortunately, we are the victims, having to endure these stories. These channel to hell things are so silly. The dramatic sense of them is so obvious. It makes one appreciate things like "The Twilight Zone" and its ilk because the lame stories and unsatisfying presentations show why Serling was so successful. We can see the end coming from the outset. The only episode that passed a little bit of muster was the battle of the two crime experts and even that one falls a little flat. Poe would have done it a lot better.Finally, there has to be a reason that guy is where he is. The undertaker was just doing the devil's work, I guess.

Bottom of the barrel anthology horror flick

[preppy-3 · 1/10 · 9 December 2017]

A cheating husband (John Ericson) gets caught in a rainstorm. He's invited into a mortuary to dry off. While there the mortuary owner shows him four bodies and explains their stories. One is a teacher who hates her students. She's killed by a bunch of deformed kids. The second is a guy who films all his dates with women. Trouble is he kills them all too. Third is about two competing detectives trying to solve who sent a threatening letter. Last is about an obnoxious executive who is mentally and physically tortured. it sounds better than it plays.

Boring, VERY PG rated (next to no violence or blood), and full of bad acting. The stories are dull and the total lack of any violence at all makes it sleep-inducing. The wrap around story is kind of interesting but it's a small part of the movie. You can easily skip this one.

"I think you'll be interested." Those would be the key words to make me leave immediately.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 15 May 2021]

A rather bland and cheaply made TV movie like supernatural thriller, this focuses on a young man's visit to a funeral home where the creepy mortician (Ivor Francis) insist that he stay and tells him the stories behind the corpses he has in cold storage. There's a grouchy single woman who hates kids, a psychopathic killer of young women, a visiting British criminologist involved in a pulp threat note predicting a murder, and the plight of a man who rejects a homeless person.

The 60's and 70's had dozens of these types of horror films with multiple stories told through a single narrator, and some were great yet others uninspired. This falls into the category of the latter, an attempt to rival the classic TV movie "Trilogy of Terror", yet sadly lacking that film's camp and the presence of a Karen Black like screamer. I can't believe that this was actually released to the movie theaters. It reeks of a late night TV premiere where the least picky of viewers stared at anything in their attempts to fall asleep.

As for the cast, there are a couple of familiar faces, but they're mostly actors Home people do not know the names of. For me, it was Francis and Bernard Fox of "Bewitched", as well as a few soap actors (Linda Gibboney and Elizabeth MacRae), but this is something that "Tales of the Dark Side" would have rejected, and "Creepshow" would have buried in the sand. Fortunately, it doesn't run past a TV movie of the week length, so it's easy to watch it, critique it and toss it.

When Good Ideas Go Bad

[cinemaofdreams · 4/10 · 1 April 2023]

The best part of this quartet of stories is the original song and its vocalist. Aside from that this is a good example of how good story ideas suffer from a lack of development, and well thought out execution. This could have been a decent production but it seems to have been filmed in haste. Even shorts can have good character development. The first of these stories had such great potential for being truly nightmarish but was lackluster, and trite. The second a waste of celluloid. What could have been a frightening character study was pointless. Number three was the best of the lot, clever idea that had some character depth and motivation. Good to learn from how not to make such films. Considering there were far superior anthologies of this kind this one is best left off your viewing list.

Terrible

[matthewstanton123-857-954811 · 2/10 · 4 February 2024]

This film starts of with a terrible song that is just totally out of place for a horror film running through the titles . This is not a spoiler but a man is cheating on his wife and ends out getting dropped off by a taxi in the wrong part of town and it ia pouring with rain He shelters in a doorway but is soon let in by a man who makes him coffee and reveals he job And proceeds to tell the man 4 terrible stories that have no twist , no horror at all.

The acting , sets , effects ,music and story are awful Nothing in this film makes any sence , it must of cozt around £100 to make I love 70s and anthology horror but this is just plain terrible.

The sleeve art work is good.

The second half is worth waiting for.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 30 June 2020]

In the '70s, when it came to horror anthologies, Amicus was king, their films boasting superbly constructed stories with gloriously demented twists, the wonderful casts featuring plenty of familiar faces. With a mixed bag of tales and a cast of relative unknowns, independent anthology The House of the Dead cannot hope to rival the likes of Tales From The Crypt and From Beyond the Grave, but it can hold its own against some of Amicus's lesser portmanteau films.

The wraparound story concerns Talmudge (John Ericson), an adulterous plumbing salesman returning to his hotel after an evening in the arms of his lover. After a taxi-driver drops him off in the wrong part of town in the middle of a torrential downpour, the bedraggled businessman accepts refuge from an old man (Ivor Francis), who invites him into his place of work. The old man explains that he is a mortician, and tells Talmudge the stories of the deceased people currently residing in his establishment.

The storytelling doesn't get off to a great start, with a weak tale about a child-hating teacher, Miss Sibiler (Judith Novgrod), who finds herself terrorised in her home by someone or something unseen. At the end of the story, her assailants are revealed to be creepy children with malformed teeth. The suspense is well handled by director Sharron Miller, but Novgrod is prone to over-acting, which undermines a lot of the good work. The ending is this tale's ultimate undoing: it's not clever, the visuals are horribly dated (a cheap-looking 'negative image' effect), and the origin of the malevolent kiddies is never explained.

The next tale is even worse: photographer Growski films his dates with several women, all of which end in murder. There is nothing more to the tale than a series of killings, followed by the revelation that Growski was executed for his crimes. There's zero attempt at a satisfying conclusion, making it nothing more than a waste of time.

Thankfully, the story behind corpse number three is far more fun. Two eminent detectives - brash American private investigator Malcolm Toliver (Charles Aidman) and stuffy British policeman McDowal (Bernard Fox) - compete for the title of the world's greatest criminologist. Two wonderful performances and a witty script make this one very entertaining, and even though the final twist isn't hard to guess, we should be thankful for the fact that they actually tried this time.

The final story is also one of the best, telling of office-worker Cantwell (Richard Gates), whose uncaring treatment of his fellow man is met with poetic justice. Trapped in a deserted building, Cantwell falls down a lift-shaft, is trapped in a doorless and windowless room, and tortured with a sliding wall full of spikes. His only sustenance are the bottles of wine rolled into the room through a gap under one of the walls. When he is finally released from his personal hell, Cantwell has been reduced to the same level as the drunken homeless man he so rudely ignored earlier.

The film ties things up in a predictable but satisfactory manner, with Talmudge becoming the mortician's next 'client'.

Nintendo Score

[saint_brett · 2/10 · 19 August 2021]

The copy of this movie I have is called Last Stop on 13th St.

I believe I am in possession of a DVD-R copy? The quality is so dark you have to make heads or tales out of what's happening.

Some two-timer guy sleeps with his mistress then suddenly requires his wife so he wiretaps for a cab. He rides with a mute. (Cat got your tongue, guy?) There's a constant annoying saxophone score to accompany all these scenes so far - reminds me of the music that used to jingle while contestants shopped on Wheel of Fortune 1980's circa.

Because my copy is so cloak & dagger in quality I'm assuming that's Albert Einstein who's invited our lead actor into his mansion? Klaus Kinksy perhaps?

There's now what sounds like a Castlevania Nintendo score playing.

Michael Myers house appears in this subplot.

Wow, the quality of this DVD-R is worse than analogue, VHS and Betamax all put together.

Some lady resembling Rockys wife, Adrian, appears in the kitchen and in what could only be described as anything from a seventies TV sitcom setting next.

Great, a Psycho shower scene ripoff. (Does anyone where showercaps anymore this day and age?) Is that the clown mask from Rob Zombies Halloween? The trick or treaters have turned into little LSD monsters and eat showercap lady.

Cue the Nintendo score again.

This is one of those anthology three-in-one type movies. This detective one is a boring talkfest.

And this Dennis Weaver character, who's fallen down the lift shaft, now finds himself trapped in a Get Smart situation. Now a bed of nails from police Academy 4 has him trapped.

If you can survive the poor transfer quality then it becomes a test of mental strength to endure the storyline. Its just not captivating and falls flat and well short of the mark.

In short, there's no big payoff for the viewer at the ends climax. It's a fizzer.

I'm giving this 2 out of 10 for the Ted Bundy character who filmed women in his apartment.

He's a bit of a creepo but has personality and an 8mm camera.

This isn't a horror movie.

Interesting 70's Cult "Anthology" Shocker

[Steve_Nyland · 8/10 · 17 January 2005]

I still remember seeing this as a teenager on late nite Creature Feature when in an altered frame of mind and being totally freaked out by what now watching as an adult is a pretty interesting 1970's Amercian made "Anthology Horror" bit -- Which I saw in the form known as HOUSE OF THE DEAD. And, amazingly, a budget line DVD company called Treeline Films has a nice little tape sourced $5 DVD release of the film for sale as part of their "Chills Pack" collection. It's worth a look.

Made in 1978 by a woman director named Sharon Miller (who had begun her career as an assistant editor on some of Ralph Bakshi's films & would later direct countless episodes of shows like KNOTTS LANDING and BAYWATCH), HOUSE OF THE DEAD has a decidedly "Made for TV" movie feel to it even though I have been assured that it did play theatrically & is endowed with an MPAA rating for some violence. Treeline's DVD appears to feature an edited for TV full frame version which does look edited for content in a couple of spots with violence though it's nudity-free & relatively staid demeanor as a film speaks to me of what might have been a failed TV pilot episode.

The film is made up of four stories linked together by a central piece about a philandering husband (John Ericson, who looks familiar) who gets lost on his way back to his hotel from his mistresses' house while in an unfamiliar city for a plumbing convention. Right. Through a series of mishaps too mundane to outline, Ericson finds himself brought in from the rain by a man who turns out to be a mortician, played by ubiquitous 70's & 80's television character actor Ivor Francis, who's sleepy, macabre demeanor is the film's most redeeming quality. I always loved him on BARNEY MILLER, and his presence also underscores the "TV friendly" nature of the production. Francis proceeds to relate four stories about the occupants of four caskets in his parlor, each of which has a "Poetic Justice" twist ending that is very reminiscent of Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY series.

And like NIGHT GALLERY the stories shown are more sort of macabre fables on human qualities by shorthand sketches of characters who might deserve having something horrible happen to them in a way of having the world pay them back for being such insufferable bastards. The first sketch is probably the most "horrifying" in the traditional sense, with a shrew-like schoolteacher literally haunted in her own home by mutant green lighted children who appear with Halloween masks on their faces in the film's single best image. Watching her scurry around like a frightened rodent with her hair mussed under a cap from an aborted shower is actually quite amusing, though the absence of a proper "splatter" conclusion for the piece is disappointing -- Even though director Miller does go all out for the 70's Psychedelic Effect during certain scenes, and I can easily see how it blew my mind. Like, wow.

Part two is also an interesting quasi-horror bit that anticipated HENRY - A PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, Buffalo Bill from THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and every other personable serial killer while ripping off PEEPING TOM in presenting us with the ironically amusing tale of a young schlep who invites young women over to his very neat bachelor pad where he murders them while filming the fun on a camera that he, his victims and the police all address at various times. It is short, funny and to the point, though it really isn't that scary, with the most interesting quality being that it is all shot from the single, unmoving perspective of the murder camera. Part three is the best acted section, telling the tale of two world class criminologists (played by likewise ubiquitous 70s/80s character actors Charles Aidman and Edward Fox) who pit their wits against each other in a deadly game of detective work, that while not that exciting gets the job done in padding out the length of the whole film to feature form & maintaining our interest with a clever little story. I definitely got a bang out of the end.

The last section is the one that really freaked me out and why I sought the film out at all: An office worker Ebenezer Scrooge type who thinks everyone else is an annoying time waster gets subjected to a bizarre series of psychological tortures after wandering into a vacant store and falling into a trap -- Just who puts him through his ordeal is never revealed, but at the end he emerges as a disheveled street person. I'm not sure exactly just what lesson was supposed to be learned, but then again I am not sure exactly what the motivation for the entire movie was, and hence the suspicion that it was a TV pilot for a related series (possibly intended to be called ALIEN ZONE) that was aborted, and the whole thing was shoved onto movie screens instead as HOUSE OF THE DEAD in an effort to tap into the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT infamy, still quite potent in 1978.

I am honestly not sure what to make of the film as a single piece and can understand why some of the other commenter's may have objected strongly to the film -- It seems to exist without real purpose, not being frightening enough to really be called "horror" and too bizarre, warped & twisted to be thought of as standard drama. I "like" the movie because of my personal history & how it intersected with me at the right moment, stuck with me for two decades after wards, and now seeing it as an adult find it to be interesting enough to watch again and write about. If that doesn't qualify a film for some sort of cult status I have no idea what would.

Book of the dead

[Chase_Witherspoon · 6/10 · 20 March 2012]

Under the title "Alien Zone", this sci-fi anthology seems a misnomer, the film concerning an adulterer on a business trip (Ericson) who takes refuge from a storm in a dilapidated building where he's shown an odd hospitality from undertaker (Francis) who introduces him to his most recent corpses and tells of their last moments.

Ericson and Francis essentially introduce each vignette, the first concerning a teacher (Novgrod) who despises her occupation and is taunted by an alien presence in her house, Burr DeBenning stars in the second story as a psychopathic peeping tom who invites single women to his home and films them being murdered, Charles Aidman and Bernard Fox are a pair of super detectives seeking to outdo one another in the third instalment, and Richard Gates plays a self-centred businessman who is dealt a lesson in humility by an unknown force when he's held captive in a derelict building.

The strands are neatly woven together by Francis, who alludes to Ericson's own atonement for his infidelity, which fittingly becomes the fifth and final chapter. Aidman and Fox have the most material with which to work and probably come off best with their witty dialogue contests, but the other stories are equally compelling if only too brief to resonate. While the title might be somewhat misleading, the stories display a concise, consistent narrative that is entertaining and the film is generally better than one might expect.

A disappointing addition to the horror genre that had some potential but falls flat of expectations

[kevin_robbins · 4/10 · 29 May 2023]

The House of the Dead (1978) is currently available on Tubi. This movie starts with a man who is cheating on his wife who gets caught in the rain on his way home. He stops at a mortician's who tells him a series of short stories on how his recent bodies got there and finally how the cheater might be next...

This movie is directed by Sharron Miller (Little Girl Lost) and stars John Ericson (Bedknobs and Broomsticks), Ivor Francis (The Last Child), Elizabeth MacRae (The Conversation), Burr DeBenning (A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Child) and Bernard Fox (Titanic).

This is a horror anthology with a fairly cliche setup and storytelling. The plots for the horror stories have potential but the horror elements are lacking and reduce the impact of the dramatic conclusions. The kills are average and disappointing. The acting is fine and the characters and execution is believable. This has a made for television feel to it where it's a little creepy but not tooooo scary

Overall, this is a disappointing addition to the horror genre that had some potential but falls flat of expectations. I would score this a 4/10 but recommend horror enthusiasts see it at least once.