iamwhitewica This should be in a bargain bin. I have rarely seen such idiotic characters. If they would not have died I would kill them myself for such bad acting, makes you want to punch them and kill them yourself. Especially the 3 girls, actually forget this, all characters are acting like dumb idiots with no brains and no nerves.Besides the cast that keep screaming at everything, they don't react. None of the actors in this movie seems real. NO ONE would react like these pathetic zombies, and if they do; they deserve to die!The movie plot is good and with good acting and directing this could be a very strong movie. The directing and acting makes this version so lame that it should be burned.I love B movies cause there is something in them you don't get in the Hollywood big flicks; soul. This movie however has no soul, no body, not much besides the amazing story idea. I wish someone would pick it up and make a real movie with real actors. (Is is so bad that you need to really want to see the end to endure the acting, again, it is soooooooooooo bad I couldn't believe it.)A movie to watch, painfully, just to get the story behind it, good story, destructive acting and directing.

Scott LeBrun From director Umberto Lenzi (using the riotous Americanized pseudonym of Humphrey Humbert) comes this dopey, low grade, but engagingly dumb haunted house flick.Things begin with a prologue of young Henrietta (Kristen Fougerousse) being chastised by her father for butchering the family cat, and then being locked in the cellar. Soon after the parents are brutally murdered. Flash forward 21 years, and HAM radio operator Paul (Greg Scott) picks up radio signals of what sounds like people being terrorized. He traces the signals to an isolated manor, meeting up with other young adults. Soon these unfortunate souls are set upon by the demonic forces residing within the walls.A banal script (by Cinthia McGavin), truly silly dialogue (by Sheila Goldberg), lame attempts at horror, and some delicious moments of gory violence combine in this enjoyably bad movie. The acting is likewise lousy from most everybody concerned, although it's nice, as it always is, to see the great character actor Donald O'Brien (a.k.a. Dr. Butcher, M.D.) as a hilariously unsubtle, menacing axe-wielding caretaker.The young actors *are* attractive, in any event. Lara Wendel of Dario Argento's "Tenebre" is top billed as she plays Paul's girlfriend Martha. The adult performers don't fare much better, but there are some great character faces among them: William J. Devany as a detective, Alain Smith as Henrietta's father, Robert Champagne as a mortician.The music, by Piero Montanari, is very bad, but amusingly so, while cinematographer Franco Delli Colli works to give the movie a decent look. At least "La Casa 3" ("La Casa 1" and "La Casa 2" being the Italian titles for the first two "Evil Dead" movies) gets much mileage out of a creepy clown doll, much like "Poltergeist" did six years previous.Filmed in the same house as Lucio Fulci's "The House by the Cemetery".Six out of 10.

Mr_Ectoplasma A programming engineer in Boston picks up what sounds like a murder on his CB radio. He and his girlfriend trace the disturbing recording to an abandoned house where they find a group of young people camped out at; unbeknownst to them, a young girl and her clown doll haunt the home, killing anyone who dares enter.Released in Italy as "La casa 3" and marketed as an unlicensed sequel to the "Evil Dead" franchise (which makes zero sense), "Ghosthouse" is an under-appreciated gem among the supernatural schlocky horror of the late eighties. Directed and co-written by Umberto Lenzi under the pseudonym "Humphrey Humbert," the film was shot in the same location as Lucio Fulci's "The House by the Cemetery," and has a similar feel with Lenzi's own spins. Yes, it's campy at times, but it also manages to be compelling and boast a genuinely spooky atmosphere.The cinematography is very professional and the movie is surprisingly well shot; the editing leaves a bit to be desired and results in some clunky transitions and parallel editing, but given the type of film this is, it's completely forgivable. The house and surrounding forest create a lush and unsettling atmosphere, which is exacerbated by bizarre encounters with the silent spot-lit ghost girl and her bizarre clown doll inside the house. There are some inventive and shocking murder scenes that are well-handled and convincing.Perhaps the most memorable thing about the film, as many have said, is the bizarre nursery tune that plays during the characters' encounters with the supernatural. It's difficult to describe and has to be heard to be understood, but it adds a sufficiently creepy flair to what could have been otherwise flat or hokey scare scenes. The acting is a mishmash of decent performances and wooden ones, but overall the characters are likable and the actors good enough. I'd say if the film has a singular weakness, it'd be some of the poorly-delivered lines; aside from that, this is actually a fairly class-act haunted house movie.Overall, "Ghosthouse" is an incredibly entertaining haunted house flick— nothing more, nothing less. If the idea of killer clown dolls, a big creepy house, and a possessed little girl in a white dress sound like a good time, then this is the prime late eighties flick for it. It's well shot and incredibly atmospheric, and features some creative and fun scare scenes— the "House by the Cemetery" location link just provides another amusing bonus for genre fans. 8/10.

Bezenby Umberto Lenzi's Ghosthouse just about has all the trademarks of a late era Italian horror. A haunted house. "Teenage" victims. Gore. Cheesiness. Bad acting. It's all there, and it's all good.Back in 1967, a crazy father discovers his cat murdered in his basement, and his daughter holding a pair of bloodied scissors. Understandably losing the rag, he locks his daughter in the basement and goes upstairs, and that's when things get weird. A bulb expands and explodes and a maggoty thing appears and splits his head open with an axe. When mother comes to investigate a mirror explodes in her face, performing the good old Italian eyeball trauma, and then she gets a knife through her neck for her trouble.Fast forward to 1987, where CB enthusiast Paul is discussing Simon Le Bon and Kim Basinger over his radio. He catches a strange signal where a man is crying for help, followed by a weird tune and indecipherable vocals, and using his computer, somehow, he manages to track down the signal to a house in the country. Now brace yourself because this is a big surprise – it's the house from the start of the film.Grabbing his girlfriend Lara Wendel (who hilariously spends most of the film in a bad mood with him), Paul heads out to the house, where he finds CB operator Jim, his girlfriend, his brother and his Jim Carrey lookalike sister/pain in the arse Tina. Problem is, Jim acknowledges that the voice on the tape is his, but he's only just set up his CB rig and hasn't used it yet. That night, Jim is drawn to the basement, where a small girl and a creepy looking clown doll appear, and Jim finds himself uttering those words that Paul taped the day before…and ends up dead.I like Ghousthouse for many reasons. First, there's the cast, including Lara Wendel (Red Monks, Killing Birds), Donald O'Brien (Mannaja, Zombie Holocaust) and Bob Champagne (Witchery). Then there's the fact that the film splits into two plot threads rather than have everyone just stuck in the house being chased by ghosts. That does happen to some of the characters for the remainder of the film, but two characters never actually return to the house, and instead try and investigate the origin of the haunting, pursued by O'Brien (who plays a deranged caretaker in slasher mode). Then there's the sheer amount of haunted house action Lenzi pours into the film, from the usual taps pouring blood, appearing/disappearing ghosts, moving objects, disembodied laughter etc, to the more surreal basement full of quick lime and an appearance by the Grim Reaper.Gore wise it's pretty good. You've got the messy killings at the start, someone being stabbed with shears, a hammer killing, and a character being cut in two. There's also the sub plot involving the homeless black thief guy that's maybe not worth dwelling on too much. Ghosthouse is for me one of the finest of these cheapo horror films the Italians were churning out before the industry gave up, and further proof that Lenzi can be a good director if he wasn't too obsessed with killing animals for jungle flicks. Check out his seventies gangster movies – they're all gold.I've seen posted on the 'goofs' section here that Lenzi made the mistake of putting Henrietta's date of birth as "1938" on her tombstone, but it clearly says "1958" – give the guy some credit.