House of Horrors: Gates of Hell
Review by Dawnrazor
Coincidence can be a funny thing. I was talking to a friend back in my old home town of Buffalo NY when the conversation got to the many Halloween attractions in the area and I asked if the film shot at Haunted Catacombs had ever surfaced. Two days later I walked into the local WalMart and there it sat among the new DVDs.
It’s also an interesting coincidence that in a city not known for it’s film output there would be two films made about real killings in fake haunted houses, the other being Frightworld from 2006. I can just imagine the guys at Haunted Catacombs saying “We have a better attraction, we can make a better movie than they did!”. Did they? Let’s have a look…
Filmed and having a local premiere back in 2012 but just now seeing release through Brain Damage Films the film gets off to a fast start with a building inspector meeting a nasty and obviously unnatural end while checking out some electrical issues. We’re shortly after introduced to Father Michaels, a former priest who now makes a living writing about exorcisms and demons. We’re treated to the same red tinted footage of him that we saw before the first killing, so we know something has to be up with him.
The crew of the House of Horrors themselves are the typical characters you’ll see in a film like this with one exception of Jamie who comes from a family of psychics and who’s mother was driven to suicide by her powers. If there was any doubt that we’re in for some demonic doings we can dispense with it now I think. And indeed there are satanic shenanigans going on. One of the props is actually the real thing, an evil alter capable of opening the gates of hell here on Earth. And that takes blood and sacrifices, which is a good thing since this is a horror movie.
Story wise there’s really nothing new here, it’s obvious from the start who’s trying to open the gates, who will try to stop them and who’s just there to pad the body count. And the body count is padded in some rather nasty ways with killings involving things like a cattle prod in one long painful scene and a hand grenade, (lubricated and shoved up a bound woman’s ass no less) in another.This is not a film that’s worried about being politically correct or who it might offend. Father Michaels hanging out at a religiously themed strip club, The Naughty Nun is another example of that.
The killer takes many forms as well including a particularly creepy clown and a dead soldier that reminded me of the one from the 1986 gem House. This may build some suspense but it was always pretty clear who was behind it, even if you never knew in what guise they were going to appear next.
Unfortunately the kills are mostly ruined by some of the worst CGI I have ever seen, I mean this makes the stuff you see on SyFy look like Jurassic Park 4. Apparently the director learned how to do CGI and did it all himself. Props for ambition, but the results are awful, even something as basic as fire looks fake and pulls you out of the film at the points where you should be most invested in it. The script is guilty of this a couple of times as well. It’s pretty good overall but there’s a couple of plot points that just make so little sense you can’t believe the characters would do what they’re doing or at least have some major doubts about the wisdom of their actions. Would you be so quick to trust a green tinged spirit A little more work on the script would have gone a long way as is mostly solid apart from them. There’s even a reference to Snow Shark, filmed in nearby Lockport.
Interestingly the film has it’s roots in 2009 film of the same title from the same director and some of the same cast. Apparently it’s a slasher version of the same plot and actually has a higher rating on IMDB at the moment. I wish this had been added as an extra on the dvd, it would have been fun to compare the two.
Recommended if you can deal with some truly shoddy CGI and a couple of huge holes in the plot. It’s well paced enough to never get boring, (and goes into overdrive near the end), isn’t afraid to get pretty nasty at points and doesn’t lose sight of what it is.
Oh and yes, it is better than Frightworld…
https://www.houseofhorrorsmovie.com
