American Gothic backdrop
American Gothic poster

AMERICAN GOTHIC

1987 CA HMDB
August 17, 1987

When six friends fly off on a weekend getaway and are suddenly plagued by engine trouble, they're forced to land on a remote island. Looking for shelter, they're grateful to encounter Ma and Pa and their children - an eccentric family living in the island's backwoods. But what begins as simple hospitality turns into a terrifying race for survival as the friends start disappearing one by one ... and turning up dead.

Directors

John Hough

Cast

Rod Steiger, Yvonne De Carlo, Michael J. Pollard, Fiona Hutchison, Stephen Shellen, Janet Wright, Sarah Torgov, Mark Lindsay Chapman, Caroline Barclay, William Hootkins
Horror

REVIEWS (1)

MC

Marco Castellini

A group of friends, who went on vacation, are forced, due to a malfunction in their private plane, to spend a few days on an island whose only inhabitants are a couple of disturbing old people, religious fanatics, and their children, now adults, but with the minds of children. The crazy family will tear apart the unfortunate young people, but will be in turn exterminated by one of them. The story recalls the famous "Don't Open That Door", but we are not facing one of the many, more or less successful, clones of Hooper's film: "Amerocan Gothic" manages to be an original horror, masterfully interpreted by two great actors like Rod Steiger and Yvonne de Carlo (in the roles of the two crazy parents) and appreciable above all in the final idea of the role exchange between victims and executioners. It's a shame that the director did not want to give us some "splatter" murders, a little more blood would not have surely harmed!