BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH (1983)

 [Reprinted from Hey, Did You Ever See the Movie...?]

In 1975, on a Thursday, give or take a day, 18 people were murdered to death at Headstone Manor via various means of dispatchment at the hands of red-hooded monks. This is the film’s funniest sequence. Immediately following, we meet several pairs of scientists, two law-enforcement officers who may or may not but probably are gay, and a randy dating couple, all head over to said Manor in “The Present” (aka 1983) to measure radiation and see if there was anything unusual about the day when those 18 people were  killed, mutilated and otherwise treated badly.

Meanwhile, Vincent Price heads up that cadre of red-hooded monks as a 700-year-old Warlock (or something) and this group only live to serve their master, Satan, who is also an alien, who is personified as Headstone Manor, the sentient and muchly evil house that must be vacant in order to achieve maximum evilness.

I think.

This Airplane-style horror comedy wants oh-so desperately to be Return to Horror High. It tries so very hard. They even got Vincent Price to play a character referred to (in the credits only) as “The Sinister Man”. There are buckets of blood and gags every few seconds. Amazingly, to we who have been conditioned by Family Guy and The Wayans Brothers to expect jokes to be stomped thoroughly into the ground, lit afire and insulted, the jokes are quick and clean—they get in and get out and move on. Overall, it’s generally funny, but it just goes on too long. About midway through, the story becomes hopelessly incomprehensible as Price and the monks burst into flames and are replaced by doppelgangers of our main characters who are quickly and gruesomely murdered and replaced again. Sometimes. And sometimes they’re not. Honestly, I have no idea. The nefarious plot is revealed five minutes prior to the end credit roll and it had left me behind at least half an hour before.

Bloodbath at the House of Death was created to showcase the not inconsiderable talents of British comedian Kenny Everett. His writing partners on The Kenny Everett Show, Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron, wrote the script with Cameron directing (his only feature film), and Everett stars as the primary scientist who harbors the horrible secret of once being German. The humor is very British throughout, in that it is more droll than hilarious. Their infrequent attempts at course American humor (involving profanity, naturally) usually falls flatter than the quick word-play or even slapstick. The funniest death scene in the film goes to the Carrie parody involving decapitation-by-can-opener. And if you still aren’t sold, it’s known among horror fans as “the movie where Vincent Price swears”. And he swears an awful lot. Oddly, that actually is funny.

For the longest time, Bloodbath at the House of Death was only available on VHS from Media Home Entertainment, copies of which can still be found on Amazon. There seems to have also been a tie-in novelization by Martin Noble, but I’m not quite sure if it’s related. Allegedly, there was a British DVD struck, from which the print I “obtained” was struck, and it’s head and shoulders above the VHS, of course. Particularly during the opening shots when you can plainly see that the house was shot in unsuccessful day-for-night. On VHS, these shots are simply blurry blobs with windows.

Whether or not there will be a re-release of the DVD available commercially in the U.S., I would like to weigh in and say “unlikely”, as I don’t see an existing market for a sporadically funny horror movie known best as “the movie where Vincent Price swears.”

DEAD HEAT (1988)

Detectives Roger Mortis (think about it for a second) and Doug Bigelow stumble onto a very weird case. Arriving on the scene of a heist, they join their fellow cops in a violent shoot-out with the criminals. When all is said and done, the bad guys are hit a dozen times each but their bodies don’t quite get the message. As it turns out, both villains have been dead for some time. This leads our intrepid pair to the Dante Laboratories where Bigelow is attacked by a large biker (whose face seems to be splitting directly in half) and Roger winds up dead, suffocating in an asphyxiation room meant for euthanizing test animals. But all is not lost! The lab happens to have a reanimation machine. But all is not sunlight and puppies for poor Roger. The resurrection is merely temporary and he will turn to dust in roughly twenty-four hours. But until then, he’s virtually indestructible—or, at least, unkillable, since he accumulates plenty of damage while searching for the meaning behind it all.

Not technically a zombie movie, Dead Heat is a horror comedy best described as a slapstick reimagining of D.O.A. (a movie playing very prominently on a television midway through, in case you didn’t get the joke). The gore is played for very broad laughs, showcasing the make-up work of Steve Johnson. The game cast makes the best of Terry Black’s script which has a decent mystery at its core but nearly all the humor is forced. Treat Williams as Roger and Darren McGavin as McNab (the “BODYDOC”, as proclaimed by his license plate and a key bit of ludicrous plot) seem to be having the best time (particularly as Roger takes on more damage--Williams adopts a real "screw it" attitude towards the end), and it’s always nice to see Vincent Price, no matter how decrepit he is (Price cameos in a central role as the rich madman behind the resurrections). Other fun cameos from Dick Miller, Robert Picardo and Linnea Quigley liven things up here and there as well.

As Doug Bigelow, however, is the movie’s sore thumb, Joe Piscopo. While good ol’ Joe, having left behind a career on Saturday Night Live, is not bad in Dead Heat so much as he is self-aware. Part of the blame can be leveled at Mark Goldblatt, an exemplary editor but not so much as a director (see the Dolph Lundgren Punisher for another case in point). Much of the movie is delivered in masters and two-shots, underlying the “buddy cop” aspects of the script and when Piscopo isn’t delivering his lines, he seems to stand around waiting to speak again, rather than reacting to anything going on. In one scene, Lindsay Frost actually seems to be inching away from him during a conversation. This could just be my imagination, but it makes for interesting speculation. And the fact that I’m doing any speculating at all should tell you all you need to know about the film’s soggy middle section.

For so lightweight of a movie, Dead Heat has a lot of detractors. A disaster when it was released, the movie slowly garnered a cult following but never really took off one way or another and is usually mentioned as an afterthought in zombie movie compendiums. Some dismiss it as unwatchable but that might actually be giving it too much credit. At its worst, Dead Heat is merely uninteresting—although at its best it’s merely amusing. No strong feelings can be had one way or another about it. It has fun parts, it has lousy parts and there are huge stretches of credibility (zombie cops we can buy but how does a runaway ambulance speed uphill?). The end result is more ‘enh’ than ‘aagh!’ And let’s face it: you’ve seen worse.

Readily available on DVD (in a sparce "you're lucky to get the movie, meatbag!" edition), you can choose to seek out Dead Heat or just catch it accidentally when it pops up in your Netflix queue.