This is a classic horror film I’ve seen a few times – most noted for its one on-screen brutal kill. Though there is only one scene of murder in the whole film, it is often remembered as a doozy. Though sluggish at parts, this film is a must-see for fans of slashers and grindhouse films in general.
Why did I choose to review this, you may wonder? It’s certainly not obscure. Well, as a horror fan, I enjoy connecting with others, and the best way to do that is through forums. I’ve been a member of HorrorMovieFans.com since 2009 – it’s a fantastic site with wonderful people, who, all too often, I think of more as family than anything else. This week’s Movie of the Week, in which everyone on the site discusses the chosen film, happens to be Don’t Go in the House. I thought it’d make nice reviewing material, and so I choose to do so. I’ll be permanently linking HorrorMovieFans, or as is often abbreviated, HMF, on the side of my blog as soon as I get proper permission to do so. If you’ve ever a desire to meet great people who love horror as much as you do, don’t hesitate to join. Plus, I’m there. What more could a sensible person ask for?
I will be linking the MotW thread from HorrorMovieFans at the bottom of the page.
Source: DVD (Shriek Show copy)
Length: 1 hour, 23 minutes
Number of Ratings from IMDb: 1,791
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Joseph Ellison [Don’t Go in the House]
We meet Donald Kohler, or as he goes by, Donny, who works at a local incinerator – or we suppose he does, as all he’s doing at the opening is gazing into the fire.
Danger is amidst, however, in the form of an aerosol can. Once it catches on fire, things literally go up in flames, and Donny’s coworker finds himself immersed in an inferno.
Donny stands memorized, frozen, as he is burning alive. Other workers quickly get there to douse the flames, but not before a particularly angry employer lambastes Donny for his immobility. And he’s not done, either.
In the locker room, he confronts Donny again, calling him rather inappropriate names. Donny replies incoherently, leaving his boss to believe him to be mentally unsound. Another coworker is watching this procession, with tender care in his eyes. This man is Bobby.
When Donny leaves, Bobby runs to catch up with him, and consoles him, telling Donny, among other things, the accident wasn’t his fault, his boss is a dick, and if he ever wants to talk, Bobby’s there for him. He even offers to take Donny to a bar, but he refuses, stating that he has to get home to tend to his mother. Bobby lets him go, but lets him know the offer is still on the table.
On Donny’s drive home, he hears what he believes to be the voice of his mother, urging him home, and it is one of the earlier indications that our main character is rather touched, to put it politely.
When Donny returns home, we are then introduced to the massive house he lives in, which looks, funnily enough, a bit like the famous house from Psycho (1960). A dutiful son, as soon as he enters the home, he begins making some tea for his mother. Looking at the matches to light his stove, he himself pleading with his mother ages ago, and it can be said that perhaps his mother abused him in the past.
It makes little difference to him physically; however, as when he gets upstairs, he discovers that his mother is deceased, due to natural causes. Understandably, he freaks out a bit, and begins shouting at his mother’s corpse to “Please wake up.”
Voices soon comfort him, though, and let him know that he is now free from her overbearing attitude. Immediately, he reverts back to childhood, and plays his music loudly while jumping on a chair.
Donny’s glee doesn’t last long, however – he begins hearing his mother’s voice scolding him for his misbehavior, and he sets to right everything to how it was before. Seeing his mother though, still dead, brings back the voices, who tell him that he should purify her.
We are then given a flashback – Donny’s mother punishing him by holding his arms over an open flame.
Now understanding why Donny is a bit out there, we can perhaps feel a tiny bit more sympathy for him. He then goes to “take care of his mother,” i.e. burning her arms, much like she did him years back.
The following day, we see Donny hammering some steel sheets on a wall in his house, when a phone call interrupts his work. The caller? Bobby, who asks him if he wants to meet him for a cup of coffee prior to work.
Donny feigns being sick, however, to get out of it, which is quite a shame, because as friendly as Bobby is being to Donny, all Donny can do is rebuff his attempts. Donny claims he has things to do that day, and so he won’t be in for work.
Driving out to town, he stops at a camping store, and sees a few things of interest, one of the things being the white protective wear seen below.
Enter new character: Kathy, a florist whom is closing up her store for the night, and serves as Donny’s first attempted victim.
Sweet talking his way into the closed store (“My mother’s sick, it’s here birthday, and I need some flowers”), he manages to get into the store and buy some cheap flowers for his “ill” mother. He then politely leaves the store, but waits in his truck.
Finally closing up, Kathy runs after the bus, but it doesn’t stop for her, leaving her alone with three thugs (seen in the shadow of the bus below), making sexual passes and cat calls at her.
Donny rides up and offers to take her to the next bus station or her home. Not wanting to stand around the Neanderthals any longer, she chooses to take him up on the offer.
While driving her to her destination, Donny asks if he can stop at his home and drop the flowers off. It’s on the way, and he says he don’t take long. Kathy agrees, and when they get to his home, she even agrees to come inside (though it does take a little coaxing) and meet her, because “she never gets out anymore,” according to Donny.
She’s looking around the house, some parts of it gorgeous, some parts utterly dilapidated; Donny goes searching for his mother. He comes up with a lie that she’s sicker than he believed, and fakes placing a call to her doctor. When she attempts to call a taxi service afterwards, he hits her from behind with an umbrella stand.
Kathy’s night, from here on out, will be one of her worst.
She’s wakes up, her hands tied above her head, hanging naked in a metal-plated room.
Donny then dons his earlier purchase and forcefully walks into the room and, with a flamethrower, burns her to a crisp in the most outstanding scene of the film.
The following day, Donny’s boss tells Bobby that if Donny’s not back by Monday, he’s going to be fired. Again, even with Donny is not within earshot, Bobby defends him, and tells his boss to give him a break. The boss refuses to, and Bobby has to break the bad news to Donny.
We then cut to another woman, this time stranded on the side of the road. It’s not spoiling much to say she is victim number two once Donny drives by and offers to take her to a gas station.
We then see Donny attempting to get another victim, but this fails terribly due to his forcefulness, and in fact, he almost blows his cover.
He does catch up with her, though, and a third woman is dead. He introduces the new woman to his mother.
During a call from Bobby, who warns him he best be back at work on Monday, Donny begins hallucinating, seeing his mother in a mirror.
He tells Bobby that his mother’s really sick, and that he’s scared for her health. He also says that he’ll call Father Gerritty, and that he’ll know how to help. Bobby offers to come over and talk, but Donny again rebuffs him, this time a little more politely though. After telling Bobby that he’s the only friend he has out there, he hangs up, leaving Bobby appearing slightly satisfied.
Donny then goes upstairs to explore the voices and noises of women giggling. He first checks on his mother (still dead), and then on his three guests.
He finally goes to bed, but is plagued by the dead women in his dreams, who pop out at him from a hole in the sand.
After he wakes up screaming, he checks on the bodies, and everything is where it should be. He decides to drink some water before going up to bed, but he sees yet another hallucination, of which he’s had enough of. He goes out to try and get some help.
Going to a local church, he procures some holy water, which he believes will help him in some way. He runs into Father Gerritty, however, and an interesting scene begins.
He asks the Father if he believes in the Devil; he replies he doesn’t believe in the Devil, but he does believe in evil, insofar as it is up to the people themselves to decide whether or not they want evil to permeate their lives.
Becoming agitated by his answer, Donny shows the Father his injuries (due to him being burnt various times throughout his childhood).
The Father demands to know who did that to Donny, and he replies his mother. At first shocked, the Father than replies foolishly by stating that he must forgive his mother for her trespasses. He then tells Donny to come back to his office another time, and they can talk.
Back at home the following day, Donny blesses his mother with the holy water, and asks her to forgive him for his sins. He tells her that he can change, and he wants to move forward from their troubled past.
He calls Bobby, and wants to go out – a movie or something – but Bobby brings up another suggestion: the disco, leading to one of the funniest and grooviest scenes in the film.
After a rather comical shopping scene – the salesman below being one of my favorite characters in the movie, Donny is dressed to kill, and heads on to the disco.
He meets up with Bobby and a few women, who seem pleasant enough. Things are going relatively well, in fact, until Farrah, one of the girls, tries to force Donny onto the dance floor, holding his arms over a candle. This brings back some memories, and he lashes out, throwing the candle into her face, setting her hair on fire.
Farrah’s brother doesn’t take kindly to this, so when Donny’s running out to his vehicle, he attempts to jump him, and gets a few good kicks in, but is then thrown off, and Donny gets into his truck and drives away.
Bobby goes to Father Gerritty to get him to help calm Donny down, as Bobby is deeply worried for him (still, after all of the trouble he’s caused). At the same time, Donny finds two drunken chicks, and promises them they can party at his home. Will Bobby and Gerritty get to Donny’s before he can incinerate the two women? *Cue suspenseful music*
Here are a few pictures near the ending of the film I rather enjoyed.
Don’t Go in the House has been compared to many films – a cheap version of Maniac (which came out a year later), a rip-off of sorts of Psycho, an English version of Mil gritos tiene la noche (or Pieces, from 1982). I feel it’s a grindhouse classic. No doubt, it is sluggish at points, and only one kill is seen on screen in the first hour. That said, that one kill looks great, and many commenters claim that to be some of the most violent imagery they have seen in a movie.
It is similar to Maniac - the film follows the empty life of a killer. The difference is, there is actually dialogue in this film throughout the movie, unlike Maniac, in which the main character rarely spoke to another person until the last 30 minutes of the film.
Now, I watched this film via
this film collection. The copy I watched is uncut and of very high quality. It has decent extras (including commentary), and I feel it's well-worth buying. Also, two other films are in that pack, those being Tenement (1985) and Cop Killers (1973). While Cop Killers is not horror, Tenement is, and more so, it's pretty obscure, especially compared to Don't Go in the House. I plan to review Tenement at a later date, because I get such a kick watching that film.
I watched this twice - once without commentary, and once with commentary. The commentary is a little lacking in this aspect: there's only one person on the commentary. Granted, it's Dan Grimaldi, the actor portraying Donny, but even so, it would have been nice to have Robert Osth (Bobby) and perhaps one of the women, Johanna Brushay (the first victim - in fact, this is her only film) or Nikki Collins (Farrah) also. Hell, even just Grimaldi and Osth would be great - according to the commentary, they're still in contact to this day.
Don't get me wrong - I thought the commentary as it is was a pleasant addition. Grimaldi, who went on to do bigger and better things, mainly The Sopranos, looked back on this film with a boyish admiration. His experiences acting, while often trying, helped him become a better actor (though he didn't do too much more throughout the 1980's).
All-in-all, it's a good film. Not great, but with a little more tweaking, it could have been. Nonetheless, it's a must-see in my eyes, for fans of 1970's and 1980's horror. Do yourself a favor and watch this one.
My rating: 7.5/10
- Michael
