The Halfway House

source: The Halfway House

"The Halfway House" is a rather great guilty pleasure. **SPOILERS** After her sister goes missing, Larissa Morgan, (Janet Tracy Keijser) decides to go looking for her at the local halfway house, run by Sister Cecelia, (Mary Moronov) a highly religious nun. Thinking the best way to get information is to go undercover in the house, she and Sgt. Dick Sheen, (Shawn Savage) she is snuck in and made a member of the house with the other women there, 'Cherry Pie' Polowski, (Stephanie Leighs) Eddie, (Monica Shere) Angelina, (Athena Demos) Sheila, (Tomi X.) and Shelby, (Saye Yabandeh) and begins looking into the house's past. Discovering a dark secret in the house, she races to save the others from the horrible truth present. The Good News: Rarely has there been a film more concentrated on having fun. It's mostly a series of scenes that are only concerned with getting satisfaction out of it. The near constant nudity and lesbian scenes are the perfect indication of that, as it reveals in them and constantly features both. It's always a pleasure to see those elements featured so prominently in the film, as it makes the film a little more enjoyable. The different forms of capitol punishment used all throughout are also prime examples. The gag with the Vaseline is the special standout and will no doubt be its most memorable as well. There's a couple of nifty death scenes, including a hand cut off with hedge-clippers, a knife thrown into a back, several munched to pieces and more, all in good, dirty fun. The special effects add to it, despite being cheesy. The surprise in the dungeon will speak for itself, and is the height of cheese. That's really all it is, a highly cheesy movie that reveals in it and doesn't really do much more. The Bad News: One of the only problems with this one is that it's goofy tone might be a bit much for some to take. It's tone is an acquired taste as it's not exactly a forgiving tone. This is the only problem with the film, as far as I could tell. The Final Verdict: It's tone will mostly be the reason why this isn't' recognized as a much better film, as it's goofy tone is a major plus to it. Highly recommended for those that enjoy this kind of film, while those that like it a bit more serious are expected to exercise caution with this one. Rated R: Nudity, Graphic Language, several sex scenes of both sexes and Graphic Violence

**SPOILERS** Ridicules as well as insulting soft-core porno horror movie that has Catholic Nun Sister Cecelia ,Mary Moronov, who became secretly involved in the Black Arts through the Satanic book of the dead Necronomicon. Sister Cecelia ends up conjuring up this creature from another dimension who looks like the rubber octopus in "Bride of the Monster" with a ferocious set of teeth. Working behind the back of Father Fogerty (Joseph Tatnen), who runs the halfway house for runaway girls where she's assigned to, Sister Cecelia together with the halfway house's creepy handy-man Lutkus, Cleve Hall, secretly have the girls fed to this creature. This is done in order to nourish it and eventually have Sister Cecelia become it's bride! So that the blessed couple would produce a race of half-human half-octopus-like off-springs to take over and rule the world. Father Fogerty himself is anything but innocent in the movie having a faddish of not only reading and looking at the photos of girly magazines where young, and well endowed, women get spanked. That's were Father Fogerty gets the idea of disciplining the girls at his halfway house by spanking them silly in the privacy of his office for any infraction that they commit. After jogger Annie Morgan, Ashley Rgea, is reported missing by her older sister Larissa, Janet Tracy Keijser, she with the help of police Sgt. Dick Sheen, Shawn Savage,goes undercover at the halfway house where Annie was last seen jogging. It's also suspected that a number of other girls reported missing over the last few months also disappeared there. Getting to know what's really happening at the halfway house by getting very friendly with one of the runaway girls Cherry Pie, Stephanie Leighs, Larissa plans to get the goods on both Sister Cecelia and her accomplice in crime Lutku.Larissa ends up getting caught by the Satanic trio when Cherry Pie was too slow to inform her that Sister Cecelia was coming as the two were about to escape from the place. Sgt. Sheen coming to the rescue is caught by surprise by Latkus who shoves a blade right through him. Down in the basement of the halfway house Sister Cecelia, in a witch-like outfit, is about to bring out of the dungeon the one-eyed octopus-like creature to devour Cherry Pie for lunch only to have Father Fogerty pop up. shocked at what he sees, Sister Cecelia out of uniform, Fogerty tries to get the creature to desist, from eating Cherrie pie. Fogerty does this by reciting passage's from the bible only to have his hand, holding a crucifix, cut off with a pair of shears by Lutkus Coming back from the dead Sgt. Sheen, with a two foot long knife protruding from his chest, takes out Lutkus where the creature for some strange reason attacks Sister Cecelia now dressed up like some kind of Demonic Wizard. The creature ends up swallowing her down whole like actor Robert Shaw was in the movie "Jaws" with Larissa, also like in the movie "Jaws", throwing a plastic container of gasoline into it's mouth and blowing the creature to kingdom come. The movie "The Halfway House" is not only dopey with bad acting and a lot of it's story not making any sense at all it's not even intentionally or unintentionally funny. Its just plain bad and insulting to everyone, of any religious or non-religious persuasion, watching it.

So many horror films these days are such a disappointment, but man was I surprised by this little low budget gem! It had me in tears, I was laughing so hard. It had it all... lots of nudity (I do mean lots!), some incredibly funny lines, and some great kills! It was directed by Kenneth J. Hall, who wrote "Puppet Master", a Full Moon film that was actually quite good. They should have had Hall write more of their films. Anyway, I managed to catch a screening of "The Halfway House" at the North Hollywood Film Fest. The rest of the audience loved it as much as I did. It seems like a tribute to all the fun exploitation horror movies I loved in my youth, filled with sexy juvenile delinquents (played by much older girls), weird characters, and a Lovecraftian monster. Hall isn't satisfied with spoofing one genre. He takes on a whole bunch of them… and succeeds! The production looks good and the cast, led by veteran actress Mary Woronov, is first-rate. Anyone who is a fan of old-school drive-in horror movies from the 60s and 70s is bound to like this movie. I can't wait to see what this guy does next.

OH LORD this one sucks. Pseudo-Lovecraftian garbage with very little gore, a few tits (but NO full-frontal), horrible acting - oh Christ, I give up - the list of negatives about this film is just way too long and encompasses just about every aspect of this piece of trash. The super-condensed version (because that's all this crap deserves): Girls are disappearing around an all-girl halfway house and being fed to a monster that lives in the basement by the head nun. The police and one of the missing girls' sisters gets involved in the "investigation"... In case you haven't already gathered- I pretty much hated this "film". Posing as a modern exploit film but not having the balls to take the concept all the way - THE HALFWAY HOUSE is a let-down all the way through. I don't know if this film was supposed to be loosely based on one of H.P. Lovecraft's works - but there are references to the Necronomicon, Miskatonic University, the town of Arkham, etc...that would probably cause ol' H.P. to rise from his grave and slaughter everyone involved in this waste-of-film if he would ever have had the misfortune to witness it. Anyway...unless you REALLY dig schlocky, no-budget, SOV/STV, camp-horror with virtually no gore and not nearly enough nudity - leave this one on the shelf...2/10

I have seen some pretty poor movies in my time, but this takes the biscuit, it is truly terrible ... the plot is dreadful, the acting is diabolical, the monster is laughable, everything about The Halfway House is awful !!! I am not sure, either, exactly what this movie is supposed to be, or what it is trying to be. If it's supposed to be a horror movie it fails spectacularly, I only jumped once in the entire film and that was in a part that I think was supposed to be funny !!! If it is supposed to be titillating, it also fails spectacularly. I'm not going to complain about seeing numerous half naked women, even if only 2 of them were remotely good looking, but what was the point of most of the nudity if not to titillate and entertain, it certainly did neither !!! In summary, it was like a cheap * movie without the * !!!

I watched this last night and enjoyed it immensely! But I must agree with the views expressed by others that the great H P Lovecraft would have raised an eyebrow at seeing his name in the credits! The absence of full frontal nudity is a disappointment, of course, and this is why I have only awarded 9 points out of ten. Apart from the let-down when the briefs were not ripped off the quivering tasty bodies of the lovely young victims, I imagine that having to swallow the victims' panties might, possibly, have given the Creature indigestion. (One did see the Janitor drooling over a pair of briefs at one point. A flaw in the plot, perhaps, since they must have been eaten - along with the wearer thereof.) I also sat through that part of the DVD in which the various participants explained the making of this movie. It was clear that they all had a great time doing it! One final thought. If Borat can make it into the top 250, why not this?

Ah, my kind of horror flick. I just picked up the unrated directors cut of Halfway House and I wasn't disappointed. This is a fun, campy movie, sort of in the same spirit as The Hazing, only instead of Brad Dourif we get Mary Woronov, and instead of a demon we get a Lovecraftian "old one" in all it's practical FX goofiness, no bad CGI monster in this baby, this is old time monster cheesiness! And it all takes pace at a halfway house for wayward girls so there is a sort of WIP buzz also going on You want gore? we got gore. You want nudity? We got lots of nudity. You want kinky lesbian sex? Check. Yeah, they don't make them like this too often these days. Yeah, this is the kind of film I live for. Best character name: Cherry Pie If you like campy, cheesy horror, with gore and * and monsters that don't come out of a computer then give this baby a shot.

Larissa(Janet Tracy Keijser, who has a smokin' body)is looking for her missing sister who went out jogging one day and got fed to something in a basement thanks to a demented handyman who kidnapped her. She calls on Sgt. Dick Sheen(Shawn Savage)to assist her in going undercover within a Catholic half way house for troubled girls ran with an iron fist by evil nun, Sister Cecelia(Mary Woronov). Father Fogerty(Joseph Tatner)loves to paddle his girls who misbehave while Larissa(who is snooping for possible leads regarding not only her own missing sister but other girls as well)finds porno mags and a sex doll in his office cabinet. She also helps out a quiet, sad lesbian, "Cherry Pie" Polowski(Stephanie Leighs)who lost her tough sista lover to the same monster that ate Larissa's sister, who gets picked on by a group of nasty girls who blame her for losing privileges. Through some sources, Dick finds out that Sister Cecilia was gang-raped and sought help in a mental health facility. Also, Cecilia went to Miskatonic University and working there was none other than the handyman, Lutkus(Cleve Hall)who now is employed at the half way house, often peeping at the girls taking showers. Once they left Miskatonic, a rare book from the university library disappeared..the book of mystic spells, THE NECRONOMICON. Thanks to the book, Cecilia has summoned a demon monster she's feeding the missing girls to for preparation of destroying the male race. Cecilia also plans to to have a child with the monster! Thanks to her sicko handyman who rounds her up meat for the monster, Cecilia's plan seems to be about finalized, will Larissa be able to stop her before it's too late? Sordid, sacrilegious, perverse..this flick is perfect for the Midnight Movie Crowd. The flick pokes fun with Catholicism as much as it can and serves up lots of female nudity and sexual situations. Hinted at in dialogue and off-screen action, Larissa and Cherry Pie have a growing lesbian relationship brewing..we just don't get welcomed to it because this little development isn't visible to us. The monster is crap, but I think it's looking extremely fake was intentional. The film isn't nothing to write home about, but Woronov is as fun as always in an unusual part. There's no budget to speak of, so the flick shows as much lurid antics as possible. The female cast are uninhibited which might appeal to fans of 80's slashers before the pop, WB PG-13 era of horror flicks began to rise up taking center stage in the late 90's and on.

A woman goes undercover in a Catholic house for runaway girls where girls are disappearing with alarming frequency to see if the disappearances of her sister around the corner have anything in common. The usual ruffians and lesbians populate 'The Halfway House' as well as the strict nun, perverted handyman and * loving, butt smacking priest. Lurking under the sex and cheesy acting is the heart of every Lovecraft adaptation / homage. A good time will be had by all that enjoy these crappy sleaze fests. 'House' doesn't let a thing like story dampen the fun of catfights and lesbo loving. Mary Wornov takes things way too much seriously as the nun with the answers. There are plenty of sex and laughs even for the most discerning sleaze fan.