{"id":2569,"date":"2005-11-11T09:41:32","date_gmt":"2005-11-11T14:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=2569"},"modified":"2018-10-31T19:50:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T23:50:50","slug":"house-house-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=2569","title":{"rendered":"House & House II"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I was drawn to House<\/em>
\nback in 1986 because it starred William Katt – The Greatest American Hero<\/em>.
\nI’m one of the few people you know who needed smelling salts
\nwhen I heard that a GAH box set was coming out. (Jeeves, old boy, do
\npress the pre-order button!)\u00a0 I’m also one of the
\nfew people you know who watched and enjoyed House<\/em>.\u00a0 It is (and I don’t even think you’ll find an
\nargument) a piece of crap movie.<\/p>\n

But you can’t stop watching it.\u00a0 Weird, huh?
\nIt’s like something out of They Live<\/em>.\"\"<\/p>\n

House<\/em> is a
\nhorror-comedy about a troubled Vietnam
\nvet and writer suffering from Wonder Boys<\/em>
\nsyndrome.\u00a0 He moves into his dead aunt’s
\nhaunted house in the hopes of finding peace so he can get his Vietnam
\nexperience down on paper.\u00a0 Tormented by
\nthoughts of his missing son, his divorced wife and his aunt’s suicide, he
\nwanders right into crazy territory as he struggles to get past the title page
\nof his book.\u00a0 With each page he painfully
\neeks out, his Vietnam
\nflashbacks bring him closer and closer to the brink of insanity.<\/p>\n

But it’s not his own personal demons that’ll kill him…. It’s
\nhis aunt’s house.\u00a0 The house teases him
\nat first with visions of his son, playing off his guilt and fears.\u00a0 But he proves strong enough to weather that
\nstorm, so the next step is to send demons after him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You don’t have to wait long before the movie takes a comic turn
\nand just stays there.\u00a0 Facing down a
\ncloset demon, Katt lapses into a proto-Bruce Campbell mode, and the scriptwriter shows nothing
\nbut an intense desire to have as much fun as possible.\u00a0 Katt quietly dons his Vietnam
\nfatigues, including ridiculous goggles, and sets out to defeat the house at its
\nown game.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his next door neighbor, played by George Wendt of
\nCheers<\/em> fame, works hard to befriend
\nwhat he believes to be a suicidal war vet.
\nWhen Katt orders a semi-truck load of Betamax recorders and cameras to
\ncatch the closet beast on film, Wendt decides it’s time to intervene.\u00a0 But he, too, is eventually drawn into the
\nhorrors of the House.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’ll ruin the surprise ending because it doesn’t really
\nmatter.\u00a0 Katt experienced a weak moment
\nof cowardice back in Nam
\nand abandoned his gung-ho, psychopath buddy to the Vietcong.\u00a0 His buddy, tortured and killed, has now
\nreturned (and the script doesn’t even attempt his explain the connection with
\nthe house) to steal Katt’s son and ruin his life.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Katt has worked through his grief and is more
\nthan prepared to take on his former friend and arch nemesis in a kung-fu
\nshootout that puts The Matrix<\/em> to
\nshame… Assuming you live on a planet where The
\nMatrix<\/em> was made by a couple of 15 year olds and their mom’s digicam.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shot on a shoestring, House<\/em>
\nwas intentionally set up to break from the horror mold of the 1980’s and
\nindulge a talented crew of filmmakers in their childlike desire to make a
\nhaunted house movie.<\/p>\n

In 1986, it was strange and unexpected.\u00a0 In 2004, it’s vaguely painful and only
\ntolerable if you’re really drunk.\u00a0 But,
\nfor the sake of nostalgia, it hangs in there…and still provides a handful of
\nproper laughs.\u00a0 After all, it predates Evil Dead II<\/em> by a year and, you know
\nwhat, you should watch for similarities…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You get a crazed severed hand that wreaks comical
\nhavoc.\u00a0 You get the bloated bug-monster
\ntaking the place of the beautiful model wife.
\nYou get a house that’s trying to suck everyone into a demon dimension.\u00a0 On top of that, the only way to knock out the
\ndemons is by dismemberment.<\/p>\n

Synchronicity?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Watch for:\u00a0 Home alone
\nwith a kid, Swedish ass, dismemberment, kung fu, shotgun fu, swordfish fu, shovel
\nfu, hedge clippers fu, Vietnam
\nflashbacks, dumb cops, punk rock girls and undead soldiers<\/p>\n

Nacho’s Gin Rating:
\nThree stars.\u00a0 I’m not going to
\nmislead you.<\/p>\n

Now let’s hurry up and move on to the next part of my double
\nfeature:\u00a0 House II<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I want to come right out and say that it’s a great
\nmovie.\u00a0 The movie people, those snooty
\nhorror geeks, they say avoid the sequels.
\nThey say everything after House<\/em>
\nis tainted love, baby.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They’re wrong.\u00a0 Dead
\nwrong.\u00a0 Let’s go ahead and paint the
\npicture.\u00a0 House II<\/em> features Arnold the Barbarian, the Undead Gramps, and
\nBill: Electrician & Adventurer.\u00a0 Two
\n20-something yahoos buy the house and find themselves forced to go through it’s
\ndimensional shift walls to save a virgin princess, steal a magical Aztec skull
\nand battle the priests, zombies and demons assigned to guard it.<\/p>\n

With your 150 year old zombie (gun toting, cowboy) grandfather,
\nBill, and your pet pterodactyl to back you up, how can you go wrong?\u00a0 Oh, and the princess is handy around the
\nhouse, too!<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that the house in House II<\/em> isn’t the same one.
\nIn fact, House II<\/em> has nothing
\nto do with House<\/em>.<\/p>\n

House II<\/em> begins
\nwith a young couple and their child in the midst of a battle with
\ndarkness.\u00a0 They give their child away for
\nsafekeeping, then go back inside to get gunned down by an undead cowboy.<\/p>\n

Flash forward 25 years and the child, now grown, returns
\nwith his spoiled, nagging, pretty wife who couldn’t act her way out of my bed.<\/p>\n

Things are strange the first night in the house and our
\nhero, Jesse, gets the creeps.\u00a0 And an
\nironing board to the head.\u00a0 But not for
\nlong!\u00a0 His drunken, good for nothing,
\ndeadbeat friend comes crashing in with his floozy wife (Puce Glitz, grrl
\nrocker, and they’re after Jesse’s wife in the hopes of tying up a record contract).<\/p>\n

But before we can go too far on that subplot, we quickly run
\nthrough some background information.
\nJesse’s outlaw great-great grandfather, along with his partner, Slim
\nRazor (the bad guy), stole a crystal skull from an Aztec temple.\u00a0 Now they’re both cursed.\u00a0 But who cares about that?\u00a0 Jesse and his drunken friend, Charlie, have an
\nidea.\u00a0 That skull is worth a bundle of
\ncash right?\u00a0 Also, it grants you
\nimmortality.\u00a0 So let’s dig up your gramps
\nand steal it!\u00a0 Ho-ho!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How anyone can calmly – even with a slight giggle – decide
\nto dig up their grandfather is beyond me.
\nBut this brand of silly comedy in the script still remains much more
\ncohesive (and timeless) then in the first movie.\u00a0 Hey, when you throw in a grandfather who’s a
\nwise-cracking, hillbilly zombie looking for a good time out on the town, you
\ncan go miles with the storyline.<\/p>\n

There’s also the matter of smuggling Gramps around without
\nletting the wives know.\u00a0 Now, that’s just
\nan excuse for slap-stick sit-com stuff.\u00a0 Hey,
\nif that doesn’t convince you to rent this one, then how about tossing the keys
\nof your Alfa Spider to Gramps?
\nYee-haa!\u00a0 Remember your shtick,
\ntoo!\u00a0 Every time you park the Alfa, you
\nhave to knock over the same pot of flowers.
\nNo matter who drives it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Enter Bill Maher (yep, same one), who plays the brutal music
\nagent.\u00a0 He’s seeking out “the Madonna of
\nthe 80’s,” and he’s interested in Puce Glitz.
\nSee, they can manage the sub plot well into the movie.<\/p>\n

With girls out of the house, our boys decide to keep Gramps
\ncompany and watch cable TV.\u00a0 \u00a0But don’t get lazy, because our boys forget
\nthat they had organized an elaborate Halloween masquerade party.\u00a0 Now you know that’s going to lure Gramps
\nupstairs.\u00a0 But it also lures out Arnold the Barbarian,
\nwhose spirit is trapped in the House and is under the command of the evil Slim
\nRazor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are a few other subplots going on, but we’re also at the
\nhalfway mark, so things start to pick up.
\nDrop everything, just fight the bad guy and get the skull. \u00a0Charlie busts open the trunk of the Alfa and
\ngets his machine gun.\u00a0 Time to rock and
\nroll, kids!\u00a0 Of course, machine guns
\naren’t much good when your upstairs bedroom turns into the Land Before Time.<\/p>\n

What makes House II<\/em>
\none of my favorite movies is Bill the Electrician & Adventurer.\u00a0 With Star Trek equipment, a natural
\nclumsiness, the best lines of any B movie script and a mastery of the sword,
\nBill should be an inspiration for the struggling geek in you.\u00a0 He shows up an hour into the film so, by
\nthen, you’re good and wasted.\u00a0 That makes
\nBill about ten times better.\u00a0 You’ll end
\nyour evening talking like him to all the sober people in the room.\u00a0 “Yep, yep.
\nLooks like you got some kind of alternate universe in there or
\nsomething.”\u00a0 The sober people should be
\nlaughing, too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And every hero deserves an Aztec princess who makes a wicked
\nsalad.<\/p>\n

House II<\/em> was
\nwritten by the same writer as the first movie.
\nThe hope was to have an “anthology of haunted house movies” that were
\nall, basically, unrelated.\u00a0 Unfortunately,
\nthe studios would rise up from their nests after the strange, wacky
\nscript.\u00a0 They not only shit on the idea
\nand fired everyone involved behind the scenes, they changed the title of the
\nthird movie at the last minute….to House
\nIV<\/em>.\u00a0 A European movie had taken the
\nname “House 3” several years earlier so, to cut down on confusion, the studio
\ndecided to release House III as House IV<\/em>.\u00a0 See?
\nNo confusion there.<\/p>\n

While William Katt returned for House IV<\/em>, it was a traditional sequel and, unfortunately, didn’t
\ncapture the same comic attitude.\u00a0 In
\nfact, let’s just say it doesn’t exist.
\nThat would be best.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

House II<\/em> edges
\ninto my do not miss category.\u00a0 Unlike the
\nfirst movie, it still holds up well in the fast-evolving (or devolving?) world
\nof horror.\u00a0 It’s fun, quirky, stupid and
\nworth a night with a bottle of vodka and a couple of friends.\u00a0 Dust off the basement sofa, smoke up, pour
\nthe Stoli, slam that tape into your Betamax and…um…oh, well…and get these
\nmovies in you.\u00a0 The first so you can
\npretend to be an expert the second so you can add to your pantheon of movie
\nquotes when you hit the office on Monday.<\/p>\n

Watch out for:
\nUnderwear dancing, nipples, dinosaur comedy, baby slime dogs, virgin
\nprincesses, sword battles, electrician lessons, gunfights at the OK Corral,
\ntrigger happy cops, deux ex machinas out the yin-yang, a twisted dinner party,
\nsatanic horses and barbarians.<\/p>\n

Nacho’s Gin Rating:\u00a0 “Hey,
\nyou look good for a 170 year old zombie, Gramps!\u00a0 You look great!”\u00a0 Four stars, which is also the overall rating
\nfor this double feature review.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[403,353],"class_list":["post-2569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-cult-culture","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}