In horror tradition, films about cursed houses haunted by restless spirits abound. What should be a warm sanctuary where one retreats from the world and feels safe—a place to live and build a family—becomes instead the setting where our deepest fears manifest, where the most heinous crimes are committed, and where obscene horrors unfold.
The terror concealed within the walls of the domestic hearth has been depicted countless times by horror directors and screenwriters. One could say there are four main ways "the house" is represented in horror cinema: as a place infested by malevolent spirits (consider the recent "Haunting" by J. Debon); as the backdrop for brutal crimes (T. Hooper's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a classic example); as an entity with its own life force that, by moving objects and furniture, slaughters its inhabitants (see J. Robertson's "Poltergeist" and D. Curtis's "The Possessed"); and finally as a deceptive refuge (G. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead").
In chronological terms, the first film to tackle the theme of "cursed dwellings" is James Whale's "The Old Dark House" from 1932, in which we witness the misadventures of a group of people forced to take shelter in an isolated, gloomy house during a violent downpour. The house's inhabitants prove quite strange: there's a massive, semi-deformed butler and two elderly siblings who seem to have lost their minds. Masterfully directed by Whale and starring Boris Karloff, the horror icon of the 1930s (in the role of the butler), "The Old Dark House" is undoubtedly one of the finest horror films of that era. The use of dim lighting (candles and small lamps) and shadow play create tremendous suspense, and when you add a cast of mysterious and sinister characters (the terrifying butler Karloff, the old witch, the madman locked on the top floor), you understand why this film still frightens audiences today.
One must jump to the 1960s to find another noteworthy film about haunted houses: R. Wise's "The Haunting" from 1961, in which an enormous mansion is infested by the cruel spirit of its former owner. Despite more than forty years having passed since its release, it remains one of the greatest films ever made on the subject of "cursed dwellings": suspense and eerie atmospheres created without any special effects (save for the scene of a door bulging), all expertly directed by a genre specialist like Wise and performed impeccably.
Without neglecting the visual dimension (corridors, doors, stairs), Wise relies on the soundtrack—voices and sounds through which the cursed house takes possession of its visitors and terrifies the audience.
In the mid-1970s came T. Hooper's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," which represents something of a precursor to films where "houses" serve merely as the backdrop for brutal crimes. In this film, it's not the dwelling itself that creates terror but rather its horrifying and bloodthirsty inhabitants.
In 1976, Dan Curtis directed his masterpiece "The Possessed," in which an entire family is eliminated by a cursed house that demands human sacrifice to maintain its magnificence over the years.
Little known to most audiences, this "Possessed" is a small gem of horror cinema—a story that, beyond the usual brutality, delivers atmosphere and tension.
Based on Robert Marasco's novel and directed by an inspired Dan Curtis (who would rarely reach these heights in his subsequent films), the film boasts one of the finest and most harmonious casts any horror film has ever assembled. Two great actresses, Bette Davis (as Aunt Elisabeth) and Karen Black, are exemplary in their portrayals, and there's also an exceptional male lead in Oliver Reed, a great actor who appeared in some of the most interesting horror films of the 1970s and 1980s (Ken Russell's "The Devils," Cronenberg's "Brood"). The screenplay (also handled by Curtis) and set design are excellent.
"The Possessed" offers two particularly impactful and highly suspenseful moments that linger long in the mind: the death of Aunt Elisabeth and the chilling final sequence.
Small wonder that someone like Stephen King, who knows suspense and fear well, ranked it among the ten greatest horror films of all time!
In 1979 came the first chapter of the Amityville saga with "The Amityville Horror" directed by Stuart Rosenberg, in which a family contends with a haunted house; in this film, horror rarely "appears" directly—instead, what seeps through is the protagonists' unease, the desperation of a family forced to abandon a home that cost them enormous sacrifices without any logical explanation. The film spawned four sequels: "Amityville II: The Possession" (1982) directed by Italian filmmaker Damiani, "Amityville 3-D" (1983), a three-dimensional version, "Amityville: The Demon" (1989), and finally the television film "Amityville: A New Generation" (1996).
Around the same period and with somewhat similar themes, the "Poltergeist" saga began, in which a poor family—especially the youngest, little Carol—are haunted by "demonic presences." Moving houses doesn't help; the "presences" follow them, even when they relocate to a modern Chicago skyscraper ("Poltergeist III," 1988).
Three films with little suspense and minimal bloodshed, of which the best remains undoubtedly the first, "Poltergeist," directed by Tobe Hooper.
Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was Italy that produced the finest haunted-house films of the period. Two in particular are true masterpieces: Pupi Avati's "The House with Laughing Windows" and Lucio Fulci's "The House by the Cemetery."
The first tells the story of painter Buono Legnani, who was obsessed with painting the face of death itself. For this reason, he would visit the bedsides of the dying to capture them in their final moments. But over time, this no longer satisfied him, so he began committing horrible murders to paint his victims. He was aided in these crimes by two mad sisters with whom he also had incestuous relations. All of this took place in the painter's house, a gloomy farmhouse isolated in the countryside, made even more terrifying by the fact that Legnani had painted enormous grinning mouths around the windows.
This film is a small masterpiece of Italian cinema, shot by Avati in just a few weeks with minimal resources, based on a screenplay by Maurizio Costanzo. The film exemplifies how, to make a good horror movie, you need a compelling story and mysterious settings more than grand special effects. Avati masterfully accomplishes the difficult task of transforming the quiet of the sunny Romagna countryside into a disturbing backdrop for terrible events. A great giallo-horror with a surprising ending—absolutely not to be missed.
Fulci's film, by contrast, doesn't have as compelling or interesting a story—one might say it follows the typical "horror film" plot—but what strikes you about this film are precisely the excellent scenes of fear and anxiety the director manages to create by exploiting the house's architecture.
Everything revolves around the basement, where a mad doctor has managed to stay alive for years by killing all the residents who come to live in the villa and transplanting their organs into himself. Every time one of the protagonists approaches the basement, even though we already know their fate, the anxiety the director transmits through his camera angles—both in retrospect and from beneath the stairs—is overwhelming. Once seen, you won't easily forget Dr. Freudstein's basement.
Master of Italian giallo-horror Dario Argento also gifts us, in three of his finest films, his personal vision of "cursed houses." In "Deep Red" (1975), an enormous and unsettling nineteenth-century mansion, called "the house of the screaming child" in the film, provides the backdrop for the dark history on which the film's story is based. In "Suspiria" (1977), set in a gloomy and mysterious girls' college where every dark corner and half-open door reveal horrible secrets. And finally in "Inferno" (1980), where the entire narrative revolves around three cursed dwellings located at three corners of the world and inhabited, according to legend, by the "Three Mothers of Hell."
We arrive thus at 1982, the year of the most famous and imitated haunted-house film of all time: S. Raimi's "The Evil Dead," the debut feature of a talented Italian-American filmmaker who involved friends and acquaintances in this production, which became a worldwide success. What strikes you about this film is not the story—rather simple and predictable—but rather what Raimi has the "courage" to show: dismembered and mutilated bodies, horrible mutilations, corpses hacked to pieces. It's a catalog of shocking brutality with great visual impact, all realized with excellent makeup effects that cost very little money!
It should be noted how in this film the "house" factor is represented in both its dimensions: as a refuge from external horrors (represented by the malevolent spirits coming from the woods) and as a dreadful place populated by fearsome creatures from which to try to escape. Another interesting aspect is the director's ability to "transform" a small country cottage with just a few rooms into a dwelling whose actual size one cannot fathom; from outside it looks like a small chalet, but once inside you discover countless rooms.
After the enormous success of this production, films about "houses" began to proliferate. Raimi himself directed two more chapters of his saga with "Evil Dead II" (1987) and "Army of Darkness" (1992), both "contaminated" with more overtly comic elements. It's worth noting that in Italy, toward the end of the 1980s, riding the wave of "Evil Dead's" success, Joe D'Amato decided to produce three films on the theme of cursed dwellings: "The House 3: Ghosthouse" by Lenzi, "The House 4: Witchcraft" by Laurenti, and "The House 5" by Fragasso. Not coincidentally, all three films had "The House" in the title—the stated intent was to trick some viewers into thinking they were sequels to Raimi's film.
Also noteworthy is J. Robertson's "Poltergeist," which tells the story of a house haunted by the spirit of a witch who was burned alive long ago. The house itself—its parts, its furniture, its appliances—represents a threat to its inhabitants. Particularly memorable are two sequences: in the first, right at the film's beginning, a young man is cut in half by a window suddenly slamming shut as he tries to escape; in the second, a priest is killed by the blade of a sander that, escaping an worker's control, lodges itself in his head.
To conclude this brief survey of "houses" in horror, one can do a quick rundown of films centered on a haunted or particularly terrifying location that isn't necessarily a house.
It seems no building is safe—any type of structure has been targeted by horror directors: restaurants ("The Restaurant at the Edge of the World" by J. Kong), nightclubs ("Vamp" by R. Wenk), bars ("From Dusk Till Dawn" by R. Rodriguez), cinemas ("Demons" by L. Bava), places of worship ("The Church" by M. Soavi), entire apartment buildings ("Shivers" by D. Cronenberg), and even the world's most famous museum in the recent "Belphegor—The Phantom of the Louvre."
Hotels deserve special mention. How could one forget the Bates Motel from "Psycho" or the Overlook Hotel from "The Shining"—two of the most important pages in world horror cinema.
It appears that after a period of decline, this genre is once again gaining momentum, thanks to major Hollywood productions like the aforementioned "Haunting," "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Others," and "Session 9."
These four films fall into two groups: the first two are decent horror films, though they're more concerned with box office returns than with actually terrifying audiences. Both are remakes: "Haunting" of Robert Wise's aforementioned "The Haunting," and "The Haunting of Hill House" of "House on Haunted Hill" with Vincent Price. In both films, the most successful element is the setting: in one, a gloomy yet majestic mansion; in the other, a former psychiatric hospital. In both cases, the "dwellings" are partly real and partly reconstructed using modern digital techniques, which is the most negative factor.
The other two films, however—"The Others" and "Session 9"—are pleasant surprises. In Amenábar's film, a majestic colonial mansion provides the backdrop for a gloomy and dark story inspired by classic ghost stories such as "Suspense" or "Carnival of Souls." The second is a sort of modern-day "Shining" that doesn't rely on a big-name cast but still manages to be genuinely impactful, particularly thanks to the excellent location chosen for the film. Director Brad Anderson, while driving through Boston's suburbs, spotted the Danvers State Hospital, a late-nineteenth-century facility abandoned in the early 1980s. Its decidedly eerie appearance, capable of creating anxiety just by looking at it, immediately convinced him it would be perfect as the backdrop for a horror film, and so it was.
These recent productions have rediscovered the myth of "cursed dwellings." The hope is that the trend continues and that spectacular special effects and marvelous digital techniques don't replace the viewer's imagination and fantasy.
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