B-MOVIE BLOCKBUSTERS: The Horrible House On The Hill
BACK OF THE VHS BLURB:
In a chalet near Lake Arrowhead, a group of people there for both family and business find themselves taking in some children and a very young nun who were in a van accident. Next thing you know, corpses begin piling up. It becomes a game of life and death between boring individuals and sadistic children. The children begin rigging up the chalet with traps that would make Jigsaw proud, and the adults find out how absolutely useless they actually are in this thrilling snowy horror.
So...WTF did I just watch?
MOVIE: The Horrible House On The Hill (AKA Devil Times Five, and also People Toys)
YEAR: 1974
DIRECTED BY: Sean MacGregor
CAST: Sorrell Booke, Gene Evans, Leif Garrett, Joan McCall, Taylor Lacher
B-MOVIE HIGHLIGHTS:
Well, well, well. What kind of fucked up shit is going on in this horrible house, that is on a hill? Tons. So much, and let's try to cover it all. It all begins in the snowy mountains near Lake Arrowhead, California.
Well it actually starts with the worst fucking child psychiatric transport driver of all time. Dude is driving nuns and psycho kids across the snowy mountains, for transport I guess, and just loses control. Like nothing. No swerve, no slide, just instant van roll down a snowy mountainside. How the kids themselves weren't smashed around that 1970's van like a gory Jackson Pollack I don't know. I guess kids just bend or something, because the kids come out unscathed and everyone else is a bloody pulp.
Meanwhile, we have Rick (Taylor Lacher) and Julie(Joan McCall) heading up to Julie's dad's chalet for a visit. Old Papa Doc (Gene Evans) is an asshole, and we will learn to dislike him more and more every time we see him on screen. Also going to the chalet is Harvey (Sorrell Booke, yeah Boss Hogg, that guy), a business partner of Doc's, and Harvey's alcoholic wife. Top of the class for sure here.
So, we get some shitty back story that Doc got a new super young wife, who has slept with Rick before. FUCKING WEIRD BUT OK. Her name is Lovely, too. Like what kind of Lake Arrowhead strip bar did she walk out of? Also at the chalet is Ralph, a mentally disabled yet honest working caretaker of the grounds. Lovely seduces Ralph for kicks, and we become that much more enamored with these people.
Seriously, we know the kids are about to fuck people up, but right now, I'm basically cheering for them.
Well, after the kids survive, one of the kids, Hannah, puts on a deceased nun's uniform and the group now refers to her as Sister Hannah. They make their way through the snow to find a chalet, now, who might be in this chalet? YOU KNOW IT, I DON'T NEED TO SAY IT.
So, kids get to the wine cellar, but one of the adults from their van survived, and is chasing after them to stop the chaos they will bring. Instead, he gets a super slow motion pitchfork to the torso, and is kicked to death, still in fucking awkward slow motion.
The chalet-goers then find the kids, and knowing a storm is coming, offer them shelter. Well, Doc obliges, but wants the kids out ASAP. Not after showing them his piranhas. Yeah. He has an aquarium of piranhas in a snowy chalet in the mountains. What kind of sicko are you, Doc? Geez.
After this shit gets weird, and violent.
The kids cut the generator power, then rig a noose trap. Ralph goes to fix it and is caught in the trap and is left hanging. Literally. The group find him and wonder, was it suicide? NO YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. Anyways, Rick suspects the children, because he was introduced as our lead man, so he got the brains here folks.
His idea gains credibility when all the guns from the chalet are now missing, and the cars have been disabled. WAS IT SUICIDE THOUGH?
Weird shit keeps getting weirder, as David (Leif Garrett) had been commenting on a girls dress to Harvey earlier, is now in full drag. A child in full drag, plotting on how to kill the people in this chalet. If that doesn't scream to you to watch this movie then I can't help you.
Now lets get that body count up kids, and lets see how high we can count. shit moves pretty quickly here, as Harvey gets axed, from both a business perspective and also because an ax is used to brutally kill him.
Lovely is taking a seductive bath, and Sister Hannah gets to drowning her. But would that be enough? No way. GET THE PIRANHAS. Now if you ever wanted to see a body chewed up by piranhas in a bubble bath, it’s right here for you. It’s just brilliant in every way.
The piranhas got full though, so the kids drag Lovely's body across the snow, and Doc is pissed as shit. His trophy wife is dead and his piranhas are missing, so he's gonna teach those kids a lesson. But alas, Doc learned a lesson that day. Kids are creative.
They built a swing, that one of the kids rides, that also has a fucking scythe attached to it. Doc falls for it, and is swing scythed in the back and out of a glass door. Oh, kids make the darndest things.
So, now with all the kids toting bolt action rifles, they come after Harvey's wife. They trick her outside, douse her in gasoline, and light her on fire. THESE KIDS HAVE GONE RAMBO ON THESE MIDDLE CLASS FOOLS.
Also, let's note, at no point could any adult do a damn thing about kids being able to weaponize themselves, booby trap an entire chalet, and pick them off one by one. This is like Lord Of The Flies on performance enhancing drugs.
Rick and Julie barricade themselves on the second floor, and that does them absolutely no good. David climbs up to their window and gives Julie a rod through the throat. All that is left is Rick, who decides to take on the children. Rick hasn't learned a damn thing. In what is supposed to be horrific but what is hilarious, Rick charges the kids and steps into a bear trap. And then falls into...more bear traps.
He steps into one, and then somehow puts his arms into more bear traps. WHAT THE FUCK RICK? The kids find that loser struggling and then Sister Hannah goes sacrificial on Rick, mounting him and pulling his balding head up and slitting his throat. Sister Hannah also now looks like a child version of the bad guy from The Omega Man, so there is that, too.
The kids now have dragged the corpses into the house and are playing house...with corpses. And that's it. They move on to do it again somewhere else, I think.
Well, that was some fucking shit now wasn't it? Bathtub piranhas, swing scythes, and the best use of bear traps ever. The signatures of a pure B-MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER.
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