Don't Go in the House

source: Don't Go in the House

Bad, creepy film that's marred by a tiny budget, high school acting and 15 watt lighting. This tepid thriller has very little to recommend (well the guy that played the momma's boy psycho was pretty funny). Most of this film was shot in the dark, giving it an even more sleazy feel to it. For lovers of real bad movies and insomniacs, others need not apply (don't say I didn't warn you). A perfect companion piece to the vile and misunderstood classic Maniac. I felt icky after watching this movie. I'm probably not the only one. C

Some of the most painful films to watch are those which are plainly sincere, but completely inept. The ultra-low-budget horror flick DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE fits this description more than any other film I have ever seen. The film's plot concerns incinerator worker Donald Kohler (Dan Grimaldi), who was brutally burned by his mother as punishment as a child. After his mother unexpectedly dies, Donald begins bringing women back to his home and burning them alive, in a twisted scheme of revenge against his deceased mother. I believe that this film intended to be a grim shocker, showing how the effects of past child abuse have driven a seemingly normal man over the edge. However, ineptitude in almost every possible department make this film extremely difficult to watch. The acting is generally quite poor, though Grimaldi does have his moments as the psychotic Donald. Director Joseph Ellison fails to build any dramatic tension or suspense, which is a necessity for any film with such unpleasant material as this. And more than anything else, this film suffers from absolutely atrocious editing. While the death of Donald's first victim is shown in excruciating detail, in a truly shocking scene, his other killings are shown completely offscreen. Additionally, a scene showing Donald shopping for disco clothes seems to go on forever, without having any relevance to the plot. About the only thing the film has going for it is a decent score, and a generally creepy atmosphere. Because of this ineptitude, the film is very difficult to watch. It fails to ring true as a psychological suspenser. The shock and sleaze value is diminished by the fact that only one killing is shown in graphic detail. And most importantly, the fact that the cast and director seem to be taking the film seriously and trying their best makes the film mostly devoid of unintentional humor (unlike the 1981 schlockfest PIECES). As a result, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE is virtually unwatchable, as it fails to entertain on any level. * out of ****

Donald 'Donny' Kohler (Dan Grimaldi) works in a New Jersey incinerator plant. While stoking a furnace one of his colleagues is engulfed in flames when an aerosol can explodes and sends a jet of flame shooting out. Donny just stands there and watches as his work mate staggers around on fire. Eventually three other guys come along and put the fire out. Donny walks away. Bobby Tuttle (Robert Osth) tries to befriend him and asks if he wants a drink, Donny says no and that he needs to get home because his mother is sick. Once home he finds that his mother (Ruth Dardick) has died. He starts to hear voices in his head. He remembers when he was a young boy (Colin McIness) that his mother would call him "evil" and that she would "burn the evil" out of him by holding his arms over naked cooker flames, he still bears the burn scars. Her death changes him, a long dormant psychosis is brought to life. Donny coats the walls of a room in his house completely in steel, he buys a fire proof suit and flamethrower. He gives a lift to an attractive woman Kathy Jordan (Johanna Brushay) who is a florist. He makes up excuses to take her back to his house. Once there he knocks her out, strips her, hangs her by her wrists from a chain that's attached to the ceiling in the steel room, douses her in petrol and uses his flamethrower to burn her alive. He does the same to a woman (Darcy Shean) who's car had broken down and Donny had offered help to, and a woman (Susan Smith) who he had seen in a supermarket. He keeps the charred corpses in the house with him, dressed in his mother's clothes. He shares his feelings and thoughts with them, and he still keeps hearing voices and begins to have nightmares and hallucinations. This guy is messed up. Donny phones Bobby and they arrange to go to a disco, Bobby sets themselves up with a couple of girls, Farrah (Nikki Collins) and Karen (Kim Roberts) but Donny loses it and sets Farrah on fire with a candle. He runs away and on his way home picks up a couple of hitchhikers Patty (Gail Turner) and Suzanne (O'Mara Leary) but Bobby isn't far behind him, but will he be able to save them and put an end to Donny's sick ways? Directed by Joseph Ellison this is an unpleasant, nasty and sleazy little film. It's dull and boring as well. The film has endless shots of Donny talking to himself or to his charred bodies he keeps lying around. There are virtually no other characters in the film. There's a tedious scene which shows Donny shopping for a suit for the disco, this scene has no purpose at all but to pad the running time out, much like how the rest of the film feels. There's no blood or gore in it, only Kathy the first victim, is shown being burned in any detail, and what a nasty and sleazy sequence it is as well. The burn effects by Tom Brumberger are quite impressive, but that's no reason to sit through the rest of this nonsense. Technically the film is OK, editing, music, acting and photography are acceptable but the whole film is mostly set in Donny's large house. The script by Ellison, Ellen Hammill and Joseph Masefield (it took three people to write this!?) is very one dimensional and under develops all the characters and is frankly slow and rather dull. I was hoping for some decent exploitation and was left throughly disappointed. There is basically nothing to recommend here apart from one nasty burning scene. Don't bother, there are better horror films out there.

Based on a lot of what I've read about Don't Go in the House, it seems to be a Love It or Hate It kind of movie. There appears to be very little middle ground. Put me in the Hate It category. If you take a look at some of the other stuff I've reviewed and enjoyed, you'll notice I do not automatically write-off a movie because of a low budget. Some of my favorites fall into the low-to-no budget category. But what those movies have that is sorely lacking in Don't Go in the House is talent. This is one of the most inept pieces of celluloid I've watched. It comes off as some kind of lame Psycho rip-off without anything approaching entertainment to be found in the entire runtime. It's dull, poorly acting, poorly directed, and poorly scripted. I feel like I've just flushed the $11.98 I paid for the DVD down the commode.

I'd like to consider myself a fairly liberal person when it comes to movies. I give Hollywood a lot of elbow room in the "creative" department and dismiss a lot of the violence, gore, etc. in the name of a greater good; namely the freedom we all have to express ourselves creatively. This movie, however, is the exception that proves the rule. "Don't Go In The House" is a sadistic mess that is filled with *pointless* violence and gore. The central character goes around killing women for such a transparent reason that I'm either assuming the screenwriter dropped out of school at the age of 14 or the screenwriter assumes the collective movie-going audience has the IQ of an action figure found in the bargain bin at Toys R Us. The movie has sick, twisted hallucination sequences that can only be described as "obscene;" and anyone that knows me will tell you that it's often a cold day in hell before I think something's down right obscene. In short, avoid this movie. If you want a true horror/thriller, see "Copycat," "Silence of the Lambs," or the "duh" choice for this genre, "Psycho." "Don't....," quite simply, is trash. It amazes me that the original script treatment didn't wind up there in the first place!

This film is sort of a poor man's version of Hitchcock's Psycho, no make that a destitute man's version of Psycho. It is a very low budget and grainy pic with Dan Grimaldi starring as Donny Kohler, a guy who was burned by his mother as a kid and so now takes to burning women in a metal room in his house. His mother is dead upstairs in a chair, he burns her too and she talks to him. I have to say Grimaldi is not bad in his role, his eyes are shifty and he looks a bit like David Berkowitz, and the sort of guy who would commit these heinous crimes. There is an amusing scene at a disco, where Donny dressed up in his complete 70's disco outfit tries but fails to impress a chick, instead he sets her on fire and gets beat up by her brother. The ending is alright and was also used in William Lustig's Maniac. A word of warning though, don't buy the DVD of the movie, it is very poor.

A movie highly inspired by "Psycho" tells the story of Donny, a traumatized man that hates women because as a child he was abused by his mother; she burned his hands (scene is shown in a flashback). A grown-up Donny keeps his mother's corpse in the 2nd. floor , sitting in a rocking chair (as I remember). Donny's violent conduct against women is a subliminal revenge against his mother but it helps him in order to feel "good". How could Donny get rid of his demons? *SPOILERS* "Don't Go In The House" is only remembered because of the infamous burning scene. Donny ties a naked woman and later burns her with a flame thrower. Obviously he didn't play with toys as a children. The scene is fantastic for lovers of violence. Disturbing but it's a creative scene that is a key part of the beginning of the slasher era. There isn't much to talk about this movie besides the burning scene and the ending. The movie is not a completely rip-off of "Psycho" mainly because of it's slasher elements and late 70's influences in the genre. The actor who played Donny did a good job and the other cast members were OK for a movie of this kind. 6/10. Watch it only if you are very into the genre. Otherwise it won't entertain you.

Joseph Ellison's film Don't Go in the House was made in 1980 when the huge slasher and horror boom was at its greatest in America and many nasty and mean spirited slashers and splatter flicks were made, each trying to be more repellent and violent than the previous. Don't Go in the House has one outrageously sick murder scene which makes the film easily to the hall of (sh/f)ame of the all time B level horror films. The story is about a sick man Donny (Dan Grimaldi), who was tormented by his even more sick mother when he was a child. The mother burned his arms everytime he had been "naughty" and he even lives with his mother being at his thirties or near that! Soon his mother dies (or is killed, never explained clearly considered how twisted the mind of Donny is) and he starts to hate females very much, using his flamethrower and self made torture chamber with his help. He keeps (of course) his mother rotting with the other corpses in his house and searches for new victims everyday, until his colleague starts to smell something, quite literally! I definitely agree with Chas. Balun that this film is too sick and perverse to win too many fans. The guy likes to burn chicks. Can anyone name even more sadistic and painfull way to kill someone than burning? Especially when chained so that the victim can't even run and try to extinguish the fire. The opening murder has a female chained and covered with gasoline and then burned with the flame thrower while Donny watches next to her and listens to her screams probably enjoying what he witnesses. That scene is among the nastiest and most over-the-top sadistic acts of terror I've seen in any slasher and video nasty of the 80's, and it is no wonder this film is included in the British list of Video Nasties, a group of films which were banned when the British censorship law began in the early eighties. Don't Go in the House was released on video also after that, but cut by many minutes, as could be expected, and due to this film's scenes of females being killed and tortured, this wouldn't pass uncut even today, I think. This film is co-written and co-produced by female, and it is no use in saying how this film hates females and is misogynistic overall. This film hates males as much as after all, the murderer doesn't get away and gets to taste his own medicine, the kind of ending which would NOT be in a film if it was misogynistic. Also, this film hasn't got any powerful themes and it isn't even interested in saying something about the society or human beings; it is just exploitation to make some bucks at the time these were so popular among drive ins and other places showing low budget horror films. Don't Go in the House is technically pretty bad and doesn't have too interesting atmosphere or any "real" horror elements, but that can be expected from these films. The soundtrack tries to create some tension, but doesn't succeed pretty well. The special effects are pretty few but at least the opening killing is almost as realistic as possible, and the crew didn't even use prosthetics as they would make people look unnaturally fat, so they used just tricks and other techniques to make the scenes look more realistic. The nightmare scenes and visions the killer has are effective just occasionally, and after all there's nothing too talented and cinematically noteworthy in this film. Still this can be recommended for all the fans of low budget horror of the eighties and those interested in the Video Nasties. I give Don't Go in the House 3/10 and won't forget it too easily either!

I rented this sick horror film along with "Don't Answer the Phone!". Just like "Don't Answer the Phone!", this one is about a woman hater who kills defenseless women and it sucks. Just about any horror movie released in the early 80's starting with "Don't..." sucks. "Don't Go in the Woods" is just as bad (read my review). A traumatized young man (Dan Grimaldi) was burned by his mother as punishment for being bad when he was a boy. After his mother dies in her sleep, he builds a fire-proof room where he lures unsuspecting women into his home so he can tie them up, strip them of their clothes, pour gasoline on them and burn them alive. There is only one on-screen death by flame-thrower, and it's very unpleasant. Anyone finding this entertaining must be sick and most likely hate women. This one is to be avoided like any movie released around that time and starting with "Don't..." My evaluation: NO STARS