After watching American
Horror House, I initially thought that it was made by young filmmakers who,
after having watched one too many horror movies, decided to make their own
horror movie as a calling card to the movie industry. From its over reliance of dutch angles and
point of view shots to constantly referencing better horror movies, American Horror House has film student
written all over it. Therefore, it was a bit of shock when I found out that
both its director (Darin Scott) and screenwriter (Anthony C. Ferrante) have
been in the business for quite some time and have been churning out this kind of
schlock their entire careers. I’m fairly lenient towards young, inexperienced
filmmakers struggling to make a scary movie, but these men seem fairly content
in cranking out lazy, by the numbers horror movies (Ferrante is probably best
known for directing the Sharknado movies).
American Horror House has
the exact same structure as the original Friday
the 13th: a pre-credit murder scene, followed by an introduction of a female character (that I label the sacrificial lamb), and then the
introduction of the film’s main protagonist. Though, in Friday the 13th, the character of Annie was sort of
misdirection; we initially assumed that she was the main character of the
piece, so when she is murdered twenty minutes into the movie it was a genuine
shock. The Annie counterpart in American
Horror House, Marylynn, doesn’t have the same effect. Annie, despite her limited screen time, was a
genuinely likable character and had an appealing personality, while Marylynn
barely registers as a character. She is first seen running across the campus on
her way to a violin lesson, unaware that she is actually running towards a gory
end. After Marylynn is diced into pieces
by possessed violin strings, we are finally introduced to our heroine,
Daria.
There are two problems with Daria: despite being the main
character she is only in about a third of the movie and, more importantly, she
makes incredibly stupid decisions. Granted, the dumb heroine is a staple in
most horror movies, but Daria is supposed to be super intelligent and badass. When the bodies start piling up rather than
flee from the sorority house, Daria stays because she is determined to get into
the sorority. That’s right – our main protagonist, who is supposed to be such a
free spirit, main motivation is to get accepted into a stupid sorority (even
though she is treated like garbage by
the sorority sisters). Alessandra
Torresani isn’t terrible in the role, but she doesn’t exactly elevate the material,
either. Though, even the best actresses would struggle with this role; there
really isn’t much substance to the character.
There is also an inexplicable subplot about a private
detective trying to find Marylynn. The dumbass stumbles around the campus for
nearly an hour only to be killed by Marylynn’s ghost in gruesome fashion. This subplot might have been effective had
there been some ambiguity over Marylynn’s fate, but the movie tips its hand
right off the bat. As a result, the private detective is just mere filler. He
has no actual function in the story and could have easily been written out.
American Horror House,
like most bad horror movies, often violates its own rules in a cheap effort
to build suspense. It is established throughout the movie that ghost have the
ability to teleport, yet in the movie’s climax, when the two remaining
survivors are trapped in the attic, the ghosts rather than teleport into the
room instead try to break down the door. Why? At one point, the generic male love
interest fights off a ghost with his fists.
Which begs the question: Was this always a ghost story? It often has the
feel of a zombie movie, especially during its final minutes. Did it start out
as a zombie movie, or are the filmmakers just lazy? I vote the latter.
Of course, the main selling point of American Horror House is its gory special effects. The problem with
gore effects is that they have become so common place on television that they
have lost their ability to shock. In the 1980s, splatter movies were something you
rented as a dare. You were considered a
brave soul if you made it through a movie like The Evil Dead and were the subject of ridicule if you chickened
out. The gore effects in American Horror House are often achieved
through bad looking CGI, so rather than being “shocking” or “disgusting,” they
are just laughable. It makes for a great example on how not to make a horror
movie.
Credits
Cast: Morgan Fairchild (Morgan Fairchild), Alessandra
Torresani (Daria), Jackie Tuttle
(Colleen), Dave Davis (Lloyd), Salina Duplessis
(Sarah), Cameron Deane Stewart (Derek), Sarah Ellis Smith (Marylynn),
Gralen Bryant Banks (Detective Hammond), Isabel Cueva (Miss Pena), Sydney Spies
(Missy), Carol Jean Wells (Rosemary), Jennie Kamin (Riley), Ashton Leigh
(Tish), Ramona Tyler (Sandy Adams), Cait Taylor (Kaylee).
Director : Darin ScottScreenplay: Anthony C. Ferrante
Running Time: 83 min.
