The Horror Show aka House III: The Horror Show aka La Casa 7 (1989)
I'm beginning to rethink watching movies just because of who's in them. This was on my list because it stars Lance Henricksen and I didn't really pay attention exactly to what it was about. My mistake. This movie mirrors, almost exactly, another film released that year that turned into a cult classic. That's because that particular movie, Shocker, was done much better. Starring Mitch Pileggi (probably better known as Mulder and Scully's boss Skinner on The X Files) as the murderous psycho sent to the electric chair which only made him mad, as well as able to travel through electric current.
This movie has Lance as detective Lucas McCarthy who captures infamous killer 'Meat Cleaver Max' played by the great character actor Brion James, who I was also sorry to learn died in 1999 at the age of 54. This movie also has Max strapped to the electric chair, but this time the premise is he 'trained' by electrocuting himself to 'build up resistance' to the electrocution (massive duh) and thus his spirit was able to escape and somehow re-solidify at will. If that wasn't bad enough, Brion gets to spend the movie seeing how wide he can open his eyes to look as evil as possible, and Lance spends the movie trying not to look bored.
And THEN I find out this is the infamous House III, a movie I swore I wouldn't watch but hey, they got me fair and square by renaming this piece of crap several times. And it IS crap. The only connection between this movie and the other two House movies (of which only the first was good anyway) is the crew that worked on it. Anyway... the premise is that Max made a deal with the devil (like in Shocker) which is not even MENTIONED in this movie in order to come back and frame Lucas for a series of murders (I wouldn't call two deaths a 'series') and so Lucas has to chase down the intangible/tangible Max until he corners him and electrocutes him again (And this works why?) before he pumps him full of bullets (Again, working why?).
In other words, this is a definite pass. BUT another chance to pitch the movie Shocker, which did have some clever and almost funny moments in a much better telling of basically the same story.
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