amesmonde A radio recording prompts a couple to investigate an old house, they join up with a group of teens and make the silly decision to explore the house where the spirit of a little girl reside.Directed by Umberto Lenzi under the pseudonym of Humphry Hubert and released as La casa 3 (to cash in on The Evil Dead) it's arguably one of Lenzi's most conventional films. Unfortunately it's hampered by a clunky script, some disjointed scenes and gobbledygook elements synonymous with Italian horror exploitation films. In the golden age of practical effects Lenzi offers a stabbing with shears, a little hammer carnage and a character being cut in half. As the group are killed off one by one there's also maggot infested knife wielding (a pre Wes Craven Scream-like cloaked) skeleton, taps spurting blood, severed heads, exploding light bulbs and jars, a Clown Doll (reminiscent of the one in Poltergeist) and also an obligatory 80s shock ending. With a possessed camper van there's all the ingredients you'd expect as the mystery unfolds and they track down the origin of the evil. Plodding pacing aside there's some good nostalgia value in Ghost House right down to the CB radios. The house and its location are creepy (it also appears in Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery) and the ghost of the girl gives a few chills. While it's no comparable Fulci cult classic, Lenzi offers some gory kills but what will stay under your skin long after the credits is the genuinely disturbing, eerie, repetitive verse.

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.

bfan83 Ghosthouse (La Casa 3) is a decent, yet flawed haunted house chiller directed by Umberto Lenzi (under the painfully obvious pseudonym, Humphrey Humbert. The story concerns a young girl and her demonic clown haunting a house just outside Boston. 20 years earlier, her mother and father were brutally murdered by the evil clown, and the daughter died under mysterious circumstances. 20 years later, two college students hear a distress call coming from a short wave radio. The trace it to the now decrepit and dilapidated house and soon meet two brothers, their annoying sister, and one of the brother's girlfriend camping at the house. Soon, they all begin to die at the hands of the evil clown and the little girl.For the most part, Ghosthouse succeeds at being atmospheric and suspenseful, mostly due to the creepy nursery rhyme that either the little girl or the clown sings (it was hard to determine who it was). The house was played a major part in the film's dreadful, melancholic atmosphere. For trivia, it was the same house used in Lucio Fulci's less than desirable, HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY.Ghosthouse had it's fair share of gore, unfortunately not too much of it, and it was difficult to see it due to the poor lighting. The acting was also a bit uneven and the dubbing of the actors poor. But that's to be expected with any Italian horror film. The ending was a bit downbeat, but a neat way to close the film. Another issue I had with Ghosthouse was that the actors were extremely annoying, and they all deserved to bite the bullet. The ending also felt rushed. Perhaps, their budget ran low, and they had to come up with something less expensive at the last minute.Overall, Ghosthouse is worth seeing if you are a die-hard fan of Italian horror. Like most Italian horror films, it succeeds in being atmospheric and melancholic. Unfortunately, it ends up just becoming a run-of-the-mill haunted house slasher flick with uninspired performances and ludicrous situations. It is quite rare on video but it receive a DVD release in the UK. Seek it out only if you enjoy these kinds of films.

BA_Harrison Hiding behind the ridiculous soubriquet Humphrey Humbert, Umberto Lenzi (of Cannibal Ferox fame) directed this lame late 80s Italian/US co-production that starts off bad, and then rapidly goes downhill.The film is a mish-mash of dumb, illogical, spooky (and sometimes deadly) happenings which occur to a group of teens staying at a deserted house. The cause of these supernatural events: the tormented spirit of a girl who is cursed to haunt the building because her father, a funeral director, gave her a clown-doll which he stole from the coffin of a dead child (what a great father: bringing home his daughter an ugly-as-sin present lifted from a corpse!).Also mixed-up in the strange occurrences are a young couple who have followed a mysterious signal that they picked up on their ham radio set; they arrive at the house just as the weird and grisly deaths begin.Lenzi's film is totally devoid of suspense, has plenty of elements which make no sense whatsoever (including a disappearing Doberman and a killer caretaker with a limp), features lousy acting, some dreadful special FX and some even worse examples of 80s fashion, and completely rips off the Tobe Hooper/Spielberg hit Poltergeist for several scenes (however, with a much smaller budget and a less talented crew, the results are laughable).Lenzi's next film, Le Porte dell'inferno, was further proof—as if we really needed it—that the director's best days behind the camera had long since gone.