In need of a fresh start, Jennifer (Jenifer Bishop, Mako: The Jaws of Death) moves into the House of Terror to care for the ailing wife of wealthy businessman Emmett Kramer (Mitchell Gregg, he of the chalk-white hair and jet-black mustache). The bedridden Mrs. Kramer (Jacquelyn Hyde, 1979’s The Dark) is suicidal, pissy and cursed with a horrid, unnaturally vertical hairdo that must be coined the Crazy Hag.
With her nurse’s cap tucked atop Princess Leia-style buns, Jennifer diligently goes about her duties, despite her patient’s acid tongue and — speaking of — the creepy mute housekeeper (Irenee Byatt, Bunny O’Hare). Plus, someone is spying on Jennifer in her room through a peephole — perhaps the same someone who stabs her Raggedy Andy doll.
Directed by Gypsy Angels producer Sergei Goncharoff, House of Terror sits on multiple levels of ineptitude. First of all, it presents Jennifer as our heroine, only to abruptly switch gears one-third in and make her a villainess when her ex-con ex-boyfriend (Arell Blanton, Assault of the Killer Bimbos) reappears in her life with a scheme in need of hatching. Second, the film starts as horror and ends as the same, but is pure soap-opera theatrics in between.
Finally, it’s just plain dull, like a plastic knife from KFC. Even with Bishop’s ridiculous facial contortions when she’s called upon to feign shock, not a single scene stands out as memorable — Goncharoff’s lone area of consistency in made-for-TV execution. If you must watch it, at least watch Retromedia’s so-called “40th Anniversary Edition,” but only because it offers a superb digestif in the DVD’s extra feature, Super Horror Trailer-Rama. In keeping with House of Terror’s own misnomer status, this hour-long bonus includes coming attractions from fright flicks, but also numerous movies that fall into other genres, like science fiction and sword-and-sandal. —Rod Lott