Ghosthouse Movie Review

Ghosthouse is a 1988 horror movie directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Lara Wendel and Greg Scott.

The movie begins with a man in a house. He finds his cat dead. His daughter did it. He locks her in the basement. He is murdered along with his wife. Cut to twenty years later, a radio operator called Paul(Greg Scott) hears a weird call for help on the radio. His girlfriend, Martha(Lara Wendel) is there too. They hear a strange voice. There is weird music playing in the background. Paul is disturbed by it. They decide to go and find where the signal came from. It comes from an old, spooky house. Martha is scared by it. Paul wants to go inside and look around. They are caught by a guy called Jim(Martin Jay). They tell him why they are there. It was his voice on the radio, along with his sister Tina(Kate Silver) but he says that it wasn't them. Martha looks around. She sees weird things and gets frightened. Jim and Paul take her outisde to tcalm her down.

There is a camper van outside. It belongs to Jim. Tina is there and a guy called Mark and a girl, Susan. Tina sees a child with a doll on her tv. Blood is coming from the child's eyes. The camper van shakes with her inside. Jim also sees the child, who is a little girl. Tina wanders into the house. She disovers Jim dead. There is a dog inside the house too and a weird guy, who tries to attack Tina. She manages to escape. Mark chases the weirdo and he tries to take him down. He gets hurt. Paul is looking for Jim. He finds his dead body. Tina tells Martha about the little girl. Martha finds a strange doll. Its face changes. A clown attacks her. She is hysterical when Paul finds her.

The police are called. They take Jim's dead body away. A cop called Ferguson(William J. Devany) tells the group about a double murder which took place in the house twenty years earlier. A little girl called Henrietta was found in the cellar, dead. The police are looking for the caretaker guy. Everyone is going to leave. Paul is convinced that they received a telepathic message. He discovers that a man called Sam Baker had a funeral home and that he was Henrietta's father. Tina and the others are going to leave but their camper van stops working. Paul and Martha visit the funeral home. They talk to the new owner. He tells them that Sam uses to steal things from the dead bodies. He tells them that Sam stole a doll that was meant to be buried with its owner. The weird caretaker guy, Valkos, is hiding at the funeral home and he kills the owner..

Tina is the next to die in the house. Paul goes to the graveyard. Valkos shows up at the house. He tries to kill Martha. Paul talks to the man who works in the graveyard. He tells Paul that there have been killings. Martha wanders into the crypt where Henrietta is buried. She gets hit by something. Valkos ends up dead. Paul hears Martha shouting for help. He gets her out of the crypt. Mark is in the house, looking for Tina and Susan. He finds a little girl and her doll. He also finds Tina's dead body. He falls through the floor into some sort of slime. He climbs out but gets stabbed by Susan, who doesn't realise it is him. She ends up in the crypt and shees Henrietta, who is a skeleton like creature. Paul pours gasoline over it. He sets it alights and it burns. Susan is saved. The police come and take the dead bodies away. Everything is fine. Right? Wrong. Susan leaves. Martha sees the evil doll in the window of the house as they leave. Poor Paul gets run over by a bus. Happy ending!

This is a weird film. Really weird. Stuff just happens for no reason and the whole thing is very strange. I liked parts of it and there were some creepy scenes,but this is not a great film. It is watchable but the acting is bad and sometimes, it was just silly. Having said that, it was one that I had on my list for quite a while and I am glad that I got around to watching it. Despite the flaws, this is not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. It is a ghost story at heart so I would recommend it as such. I will give this one a 5/10.