(1988)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096453/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Casa_4
Alternate Titles:
Witchery
Evil Encounters
Démoniaque présence
Demonic Presence
Ghosthouse 2
Evil Dead 4
The Haunted House
Witchcraft
Return of the Exorcist
...and probably many others
Staring David Hasselhoff, Leslie Cumming, Linda Blair
Directed by Fabrizio Laurenti going under the alias Martin Newlin
Country: Italy
Well I Wasn't Expecting Phantom of the Opera.
I tell you there is a feeling of dread that goes over you when your about to watch a horror movie staring David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair, directed by the guy who brought us Troll 3 (well one of the Troll threes – an unofficial sequel containing the killer plants). This all seems worsened by the fact this movie has so many alternate titles you could full an entire shelf with the same movie and make it seem you have a sizable collection of unrelated horror films.
La Casa 4 is the first unofficial sequel to La Casa 3, which in turn was an unofficial sequel to Evil Dead 2. Yes it's an unofficial sequel to an unofficial sequel. Technically the movie is named “Witchery” but it is most familiarly known as “Ghosthouse 2”. This confusion begun when the low budget American horror movie “Evil Dead” was released as “Le Casa” in Italy, meaning “The House”. The sequel “Evil Dead 2” therefore became “Le Casa 2” and then when “Ghosthouse”, a movie unrelated to the series, wanted to boast sales it did so by slapping on the "La Casa" title. So when Fabrizio Laurenti's “Witchery” took the title of “Ghosthouse 2” it also inherited the title of “Le Casa 4”.
Produced by D'Amato's notorious Filmirage La Casa 4 boasts a pretty good script for this kind of movie and an interesting, if not surreal world, but the movie hampered by poor production and having too many points of view. For example we're introduced to the father of one of the “victims”, a sheriff and a girl in a wheelchair who each have a point of view to the story and each of these points of view are entirely pointless. This sort of movie making works in a Fulci movie where plot, character, and a sense of time are intentionally distorted but in a movie comprised of a loose federation of subplots this becomes downright annoying.
The movie opens with a very suspenseful chase scene as a pregnant woman desperately tries to flee several pilgrims with pitchforks. This leaves one to believe that witchcraft is involved. These suspicions which are partially confirmed by the sight of a sacred flickering crystal worn around her neck. She runs into a good old spooky house with a long seamless Dario Argento-style white hallway, stumbling and desperately trying the doors. Her pursuers close in. She then desperately jumps out the window and out of Linda Blair's nightmare.
The film is about the Linda Blair's character (kind of) who is named Jane Brooks. She is young, single and pregnant. Her mother and father have just bought an old hotel located in the middle of a remote island (cause when I'm on a vacation I love the convenience of finding a boat every night I wanna go to sleep). They hire an architect to come along with them and do a financial assessment of the place. She is played by Cathrine Hickland and although she's a total nymphomaniac in the movie, and spends two scenes in her under garments we get to see nothing juicy. At least in the version I watched. When they call her under recommendation she say's she never heard of the family who recommended her, meaning something sinister is working behind the scenes.
I'm beginning to see a problem with this movie. Linda Blair, Cathrine Hickland, the Hofster, and even Hildegard Knef. That's a lot of semi-recognizable names for a cheap Italian horror movie from a company that specializes in quickly made exploitation movies. That's a lot of the budget and driving force for the film tied up in obtaining your actors.
Jane and her little brother start to see visions of this lady dressed in black (Knef) who can manipulate the world through the use of the magic stone seen in the dream. The little brother in the movie talks in such a slow deliberate manner that it goes from laughable to downright jaw-droppingly horrible.
That brings us to another major problem of the movie. The acting is all over the place. This of course is related to first problem I mentioned. The semi-A list actors do their job and do them well and the B list actors are all relatively good, minus Cumming who is very wooden, but since they must have spent all their budget on getting Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff (I know, I know, just roll with it) the people they got for the smaller bits basically read their lines directly. It's noticeable.
But I know what your all asking... The only question worth a damn here. How is the Hoffster? Well believe it or not he's really good. He spends the whole movie trying to get Leslie Cumming into bed with him (she plays a virgin) but he's the one character who remains likable throughout the entire movie. His character, and Cumming's, are on a separate journey at the beginning of the movie, documenting the island's infamous "witch lights", when the Brooks family shows up on the island. This being on private property the amateur paranormal investigators hide and don't really come back into play until the Brooks' sea guide is killed by the lady in black.
Then characters are transported and picked off one by one in this “otherworld”. Although the “otherworld” scenes are the best scenes in the movie the transportation scenes are just silly. The character is seen screaming and waving their arms in front of a green screen which is just a bunch cheesy swirling colours.
That brings me to another problem with the movie. It goes from atmospheric story to cheesy nonsense at such ease that it can't be taken seriously. The scenes in the “otherworld” are disturbing and well done, (including an infamous scene where a character gets her mouth sewn shut) but you can't appreciate the effect cause your taken off guard by the cheesy special effects in the transportation scenes.
The script flows to the inevitable conclusion (you'll see it coming) that would be effective if the acting wasn't so deliberate. Why the rely so much on Leslie Cumming I have no idea. Everything is resolved to a degree but we never get to see the effects of this resolution on the characters, and more importantly everything is weakly tied together.
This brings me to my second last problem with the movie.
You ever watch a movie where they adapted a novel completely to screen, without cutting everything out. This is what this movie feels like. Every subplot is weak and uninteresting cause only time delegated to each is how it loosely ties to next subplot. For example the “witch lights” ties to a silent movie actress who turned reclusive and to black magic, which in turn ties in to an executed witch seen in the actresses final hidden movie, which in turn ties into devil worship, the rebirth of Satan, and Jane Brook's strange nightmares. The whole movie is just a bunch of connected subplots. This maybe due to first time director Fabrizio Laurenti's inability to keep everything together in the amount of time allotted to him or to a screenplay with a bunch of good ideas and nothing else.
And this brings me to my final problem. There's some goofy stuff going on. Not enough to ruin the experience but enough to be noticeable. Night turns to day, exposition comes at the most convenient times, or after establishing a tape recorder has run out of batteries it works fine at the climax.
For all this though the movie is never not entertaining. It's bad yes, but not worthy of the extremely low rating it has on imdb. It's by far watchable, and possibly enjoyable by some, it is just very poorly executed.
*Also imdb screwed up the plot outline and has used the plot outline for the first “Withcraft” movie.
*Also I forgot to mention that the dialogue is a mess and it is a little upsetting that no where in the movie does endless David Hasselhoff's mold into each others crotch or Linda Blair tells someone of theirs mothers activities in hell.
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