"That's what's wrong with the present day horror films. There's no realism."
The House That Dripped Blood (1970), is an British anthology horror film produced by Amicus Productions. It contains four stories all involving previous tenants of a large house in the countryside who met their demise in a strange way, and the stories are connected by a framing story about a couple of police officers who are investigating the most recent death of a tenant.
Although it takes a while to understand what they're trying to do, one of the best things about this film is the interesting way it connects the stories. I have to say its definitely one of the most interesting ways I've ever seen to connect an anthology film, despite not being pulled off as good as it could have been. But there's also something to be said about a framing story that doesn't just lay its cards out in the first scene too. I do appreciate films like this where you have to get to the end to understand what is really going on.
The worst thing about this film is the stories. They're not written particularly badly, but they're almost all just so dull and uninteresting. They're all very reliant on each stories twist and almost all of them contain what we call a "Double-Shyamalan," which in its self isn't inherently bad and fits the genre well, but to see a double twist 4 times in a row gets really, really repetitive.
I also think the selection of stories is weird. Not to spoil, but the first two stories are non supernatural of nature, and the second two are. Which is weird to me because when I'm watching an anthology film I'm thinking about the common themes and tropes of the stories selected and put together. So when I watch two stories that end up being non-supernatural of nature, I'm really thrown off when the next two are? The least they could have done was switch them up so they were non-supernatural, supernatural, non... etc.
The acting in this film is also pretty terrible or dull at best. There's a couple exceptions I'll get to in a minute but otherwise they really just weigh down the already dull material. Even Christopher Lee seems like he's phoning in his acting, to the point where I couldn't figure out how his character was supposed to be feeling toward his daughter, which happens to be a major part of that story! Pretty un-excusable.
The two best things about this film are Peter Cushing and Jon Pertwee, and for two completely different reasons. Peter Cushing is the perfect counter weight to Christopher Lee. Where you can tell how much Chris Lee liked the source material based on his performance in the film, you'd never know with Peter Cushing because he really gives his all in every film I've ever seen him in! And even though I've seen him play a variety of roles, his acting in this movie is new to me, I've never seen him play a role like this and he really nails it.
Jon Pertwee on the other hand (yes Whovians, the third Doctor,) is really hamming up his role here and while I'm less familiar with his career so I'm not sure if this is intentional for this role or not, but he really sells his segment of the film. And it's also very ironic that he's playing an aging Christopher Lee-type role in a film that also stars Christopher Lee! So it's no surprise that these two actors really made the film for me and the second and fouth stories are my favorite of the bunch, easily.
The House that Dripped Blood (1970) isn't a great film, but it's probably a good stand alone example of the many Amicus Productions Horror anthologies.
3/5 Stars.
Happy watching!
This review is part of my 2014 run of 13 Nights of Macabre Movies! Tune in tomorrow as I review one of Amicus Productions' most well know horror anthologies, Tales from the Crypt (1972).
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