Cold Fusion Video Reviews

aka House 4: The Repossession

• Directed by Lewis Abernathy
• Written by Geof Miller
• Starring
  • Terry Treas
  • William Katt
  • Scott Burkholder
  • Denny Dillon
  • Melissa Clayton
• Produced by Sean S. Cunningham and Debbie Hayn-Cass

First up, I suppose I ought to try to elucidate the pedigree of this movie. The original House came out in 1986, and was a surprising hit; it was followed immediately by House 2: The Second Story (1987), which probably qualifies as one of the most unnecessary titles ever. House 2 made no bones about being an in-name-only sequel; hell, the ad campaigns proclaimed it front and center on the back of every comic book that year: it’s a different house. Unfortunately, while the first movie had a wonderful sense of frenetic humor, the second was watered down to the point that it seemed more like a Halloween-season Disney Sunday Movie.

And House 3? Well, technically, there is no House 3, but there is The Horror Show (1989). I’ve heard two different stories of how this movie is linked into the House franchise. In one version, the movie changed so much in development that, by the time it was filmed, it really wasn’t very connected thematically to the previous two House movies, and thus was retitled (retaining its title in the UK, though). The other version is the exact opposite; The Horror Show was inexplicably retitled House 3 in the UK because it, like the House movies, was produced by Sean Cunningham, and thus Cunningham decided to avoid possible confusion (too late!) by giving the third House movie the title of House 4.

All clear? Great. Too bad this movie isn’t worth all that effort.

Now, because it is that season between the two major sappy holidays, I shall try to abide by the spirit of the season in first enumerating the good points of this movie. The technical aspects are good; picture and sound are clear, aside from a few process FX shots that don’t cut the mustard. I have no complaints about the acting. And if the soundtrack left no real impression, at least it wasn’t actively annoying.

But the story… Sweet Mother of Bob, the story…

We open at, quite naturally, a house. Not just any house, but The House, a dead ringer for the house in the first two movies. Except of course for the fact that this one is not in the same suburban setting; in fact, it’s somewhere in the deserted California hills where they like to shoot movies, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing. And we’re introduced to our nuclear family: Roger Cobb (William Katt), his wife Kelly (Terri Treas of the Alien Nation series), and their adolescent daughter Laurel (Melissa Clayton).

Now, you’ll note that William Katt is here, and his character has the same name as his character in the original House. From this, you might think that this is finally a sequel to the original. Well, let me tell you: That’s just what they want you to think! On further examination, however, we realize that a) he is not married to Kay Lenz’s character from the first movie; b) he has a daughter, as opposed to the son in the first movie; c) this house has absolutely no connection to the previous one; and d) he speaks of the supernatural and mystical as one who has had no personal contact with it — i.e., unlike a man who had fought a haunted house and the vengeful spirit of a ‘Nam buddy to rescue his son. The conclusion, then, is that Katt is playing a completely separate character who just happens to bear the name of Roger Cobb.

Oh yes, we also meet Roger’s stepbrother Burke (Scott Burkholder), arguing with the economic advantages of selling this old house. Roger, however, is adamant that the house stay in the family, despite the fact that no one has lived there for decades and it’s falling to ruin; his father had promised his grandfather, and likewise Roger had promised his father, that the house would stay in the family, as some sort of sacred trust.

We’re given a clue to that sacred trust when resident Wise Old Indian, Ezra (Ned Romero), stops by the house. Offering to lock up for them when they leave, he first goes to the basement and uncovers some glowing carved stone sigil thingie in the floor, over which he shakes a rattle and scatters dust and all that Movie Indian stuff.

Anyway, as the plot starts finally: Roger is killed in a car accident on their way back to town, and Laurel is left paraplegic; in response, Kelly decides that she and Laurel will move into the old house and fix it up.

And it’s right here where the writer (and the five or so people credited with coming up with the story) gets out all of the horror movie cookie-cutters.

Naturally, Burke starts working on Kelly to sell him the property that Roger wouldn’t; it should come as no surprise that Burke and his two henchmen are working for evil industrialist Grosse (a very phlegmatic Mark Gash), who plans to drain the aquifer under the house to hide toxic waste from federal authorities. Somehow, there’s an odd equation in low-budget movies: The more the producers are concerned with turning out low-quality “product” rather than satisfying movies, the more often they fall back on the stock “evil industrialist” villain. I wonder if the irony ever strikes them in the shower, or in the wee small hours of a sleepless night.

And meanwhile, Kelly starts having the bane of all horror movie protagonists: Those weird visions that only she can see, sort of like waking dreams. We get a phantom hand coming out of Roger’s spilled ashes (which turn out not to be spilled), various sounds in the pipes, a blood shower (and an obvious body double), a dream/not dream in which she almost kills Laurel with a ghostly knife, and a singing pizza man (which isn’t so weird in itself, except that Kelly then finds herself battling a singing pizza). Top that off, of course, with the factory-issue flashback-filled dreams, and you’ve got a large reservoir of Generic Horror Movie waiting for an animating spark that never comes.

The singing pizza sequence is the only one which even attempts to recall the wonderful horror/comedy mix of the first movie; everything else is standard supernatural malevolence, and even that makes absolutely no sense; as Kelly learns when she visits Wise Old Indian Ezra (who’s not exactly a trustworthy character, I should think — how can you run a Catholic pueblo while at the same time spout about the Great Spirit?), the power of the house is one for good, stemming from the sacred healing spring beneath the house. (See, Roger’s great-grandfather married the daughter of the last shaman of Ezra’s tribe, and the house was built to protect the sacred spring from White Man desecration.) So where in the hell are these malevolent manifestations coming from? More than anything, it seems as though the introduction of the whole “healing spring” thing was a complete surprise to writer Geof Miller, as the malevolent occurrences immediately stop once Kelly (and we) find out about it; apparently he wasn’t allowed to go back in another draft and fix the first half of the movie.

Having such a careless plot foisted upon me as entertainment put me in a pissy mood, and I started nit-picking all the stupid little things that normally I’d forgive:

- Is my wife the only woman in the world who actually washes off her makeup before going to bed?

- Speaking of bed: I’ve never trusted those movies in which people movie into (or stay over at) a decades-deserted house and find the possessions all in order, the walls unencrusted with graffitti, and (worst of all) the beds in working order. Very rarely does a movie make even the attempt at dealing with these old beds (such as in Casper, in which Christina Ricci at least unrolls a sleeping bag on top of the bed), but even in these cases the moviemakers are apparently willfully ignorant of how appealing an old mattress is to generations of rodents who then make their homes in it. And movies like House 4, in which the characters merely dust off the bed clothes and then lie on them as if the sheets were as fresh as the morning dew, make my stomach turn.

- What, the pizza accidentally has anchovies and the girl thinks you can just pick them off and everything will be hunky-dory? Learn quick, girl; once anchovies have been on a pizza, the flavor is there to stay. Deal with it.

All right, that last one may have been overmuch. But I was angry that professionals — maybe not A-list moviemakers, but people who Should Know Better — would make a movie that just reeks of convenience, inconsistency, and just plain carelessness.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 3
• breasts: 2 (thank you, BodyDoubles’R'Us)
• explosions: 1
• dream sequences: 3
• “waking dream” hallucinations: 7
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek:
  • Scott Burkholder (Burke) played “Hilliard” in the DS9 episode “When It Rains”
  • Ned Romero (Ezra) was “Krell” in the original episode “A Private Little War,” “Anthwara” the Indian leader in the TNG episode “Journey’s End,” and “Great-Grandfather” in the Voyager episode “The Fight”
  • Annie O’Donnell (the nurse) played “Keena” in the DS9 episode “Progress”
  • Steve Vinovich (the yard sale man) was “Joseph” in the DS9 episode “Paradise”