House IV

how low can you go?not much lower than this,the 4th and final(hopefully)installment int the dreadfully awful "House" series.each previous entry outdid the last for sheer crap.the last installment,made it about 30 minutes,when we realized we couldn't go any further.we never laughed once ,nor jumped out of our seats once.these movies are billed as horror/comedy, so shouldn't they contain elements of horror and comedy?the fact this series was ever released onto an unsuspecting public is horrifying indeed.i don't know if i've ever been this bored in my entire life.i mean,what the hell were these people(anyone involved in this crap fest)smoking?some movies are so bad,they'r good. i wish this movie was that good.after torturing ourselves for way too long,we went outside and watched the grass grow to relieve the boredom.0*

If you go into this expecting a pleasant sequel to House(1986), you will be vastly disappointed. This is a message horror movie about the evils of toxic waste and killing Native Americans. There is an odd feel to the movie, but not in a good way. Mostly it is either dumb, beating a failed henchman with a sex doll, or sick, watching a little person hack up lung butter. There is only one scene that really came close to being as funny and scary as scenes in the original house. Mrs. Cobb opens up a pizza box and the pizza has a face which starts singing to her. William Katt does return in this movie to be killed and also in one scene as a ghost. Thanks a lot. Thankfully this was the third and final House film, seeing as House 3: The Horror Show is a sequel like Zombie 2 is a sequel. Stick with the original, you can never fail with William Katt and George Wendt.

Now, I thought this was supposed to be a straight sequel to House. Usually there is some sort of continuity in sequels. First the house was in a suburban neighbourhood in the original. In House 4 the property looks to be close to a desert. Also Roger Cobb had a son in House. In the sequel there is a daughter. Did the director even watch the original to get even a semblance of a continuous story? - doesn't look like it. William Katt must have thought it good luck that he was killed off in the first 5 minutes. Relief for him - pain and regret for the rest of us. This film is one of the worst I've seen - and I've seen some bad films.

In some of the dream and scare sequences, the director of "House IV" shows considerable talent and imagination. But the plot is just a rehash of old cliches, and toward the end it goes all over the map and creates quite a few gaps. Even horror movies have to establish some rules and play by them, this movie goes every which way but loose. Still, it's better than the dreadful "House II". (**)

After the diversion in tone and content in the third entry, House IV is a return to the comedy with horror formula covered in the first two movies. It even has William Katt return as Roger Cobb, although he almost seems like a different character, which is a bit strange. Whatever the case, he has little more than a cameo and is killed off early, with the remainder of the picture focusing on his wife and daughter who live in a haunted house which is coveted by Katt's evil step brother. While this is a pretty limited film in a lot of ways, I sort of found it kind of hard to dislike. Unlike the earlier films, the comedy isn't particularly funny though, while the horror is once again playing second fiddle and is probably even more diluted here than before. Still, it does have good moments such as the scenes with the sinister dwarf businessman Mr Grosso, while the characters and story were good enough to ensure I was never bored.