The House Of Lost Souls

AKA La Casa Delle Anime Erranti

Director: Umberto Lenzi

It was this time last year my wife and I lost our much loved cat, Betty. I suspect you are wondering what relevance this has to Italian horror… well, whilst we were watching Umberto Lenzi’s “The House Of Lost Souls” she gave us a literal jump scare by launching herself on to my lap out of nowhere during the movie. I absolutely jumped out of my skin but Betty’s intentions were purely of the snuggly nature rather than malicious. Because of that incident, this film has a special place in my heart and I thought what better way to celebrate her memory and to mark a year since her passing than to review the film itself.

“The House Of Lost Souls” is Umberto Lenzi’s second entry in the “Doomed Houses” series, following on from “The House Of Witchcraft”. Like its predecessor, “The House Of Lost Souls” was originally commissioned to be a TV movie but was deemed too violent for the small screen so instead found its way going straight to video. That being said, out of the four “Doomed Houses” films, this is probably the least gory.

Interestingly, it would appear that in Germany the film was released as “Ghosthouse 3”, a sequel to Umberto Lenzi’s own “Ghosthouse” released one year prior. The cover for this release uses the same image as the totally unrelated movie “Witchboard”, released in 1986. Fans of “Ghosthouse” needn’t get too excited though as “The House Of Lost Souls” is also totally unrelated. To add to the insanity, it would seem “The House Of Witchcraft” was released in Germany as “Ghosthouse 4” with an image of the Bates Motel house from “Psycho” on it! Despite being the jumping off film for its own cobbled together franchise, “Ghosthouse” is also known as “La Casa 3”, “La Casa” being the Italian franchise comprising “The Evil Dead”, “Evil Dead 2”’and then a host of unrelated sequels/movies rebranded to make it a series. Let’s move on before my head explodes.

The film opens with one of our characters, Carla (played by Stefania Orsola Garello) having some visions which are causing her quite a bit of distress. These include a monk repeatedly hitting a Buddha statue with an axe, a young boy with blood on his hands and a skeleton in a wheelchair. I’m not being funny love, but I dream about worse on a nightly basis and I’m not the one in an Umberto Lenzi movie. Luckily her boyfriend Kevin (played by Joseph Alan Johnson) is on hand to comfort her by saying “the doctors gave you a reasonable explanation, you have psychic powers”. Shame the NHS isn’t so open minded. The pair are staying on a campsite in the mountains with their friends Massimo (played by Matteo Gazzolo, who would later appear in Lamberto Bava’s “Body Puzzle”), Mary (played by Laurentina Guidotti), Mary’s boyfriend Guido (played by Gianluigi Fogacci) and Carla’s younger brother, Gianluca (played by Constantino Meloni), who isn’t quite as annoying as Bob from “House By The Cemetery” but isn’t far off. The group are on a tour checking out some of the local rocks… I guess.

Their trip is cut short however due to bad weather and some landslides that are causing havoc on the roads, which we will have to take the characters word for as we never see any landslides or any of the devastation. Desperate to find somewhere to shelter for the night, the gang pull up outside a run down hotel to see if it is open. Sadly it is closed, but just before they are about to leave, the lights in the hotel click on and a mysterious man (played by Charles Borromel who you may recognise from Joe D’Amato’s excellent video nasty “Absurd”) appears at the doorway. Kevin pleads with the man to allow them to stay which he agrees to by nodding nonchalantly and walking away. To say the man “seems a bit odd” is an understatement, he doesn’t say a word, looks suspiciously at the group (especially Carla) and not least because he goes slightly transparent as he walks to the counter to get the room keys. I have a feeling he might be a bit ghosty.

The gang settle themselves in their respective rooms and it seems the hotel hasn’t been touched in years. What’s more, they find a calendar hanging in one of the bedrooms from 1969 with the 24th August circled. As Carla ponders this there is a clap of thunder as a storm begins to set in. Later that night whilst the rest of the group are sleeping, Carla begins to hear strange noises and twisted voices from deeper in the hotel so gets up to investigate, which leads her to the basement. The basement set looks like the same one also used in “The House Of Witchcraft”, this time redressed and without the added addition of snow. As Carla takes a look around she is startled by the sound of a television turning on (even though it is unplugged) which begins to play footage of a man attempting to murder a woman and a young boy with an axe a la “The Shining”, the boy being the young boy Carla had a vision of at the campsite earlier on. The television explodes and Carla begins to scream which awakens the rest of the group. Kevin, Massimo and Guido rush downstairs to see what the commotion is whilst Mary wanders into the kitchen and is pushed into a walk in freezer, complete with human corpses hanging from the ceiling, by a rather grizzly looking arm. Again, screaming ensues.

Meanwhile, blood begins to drip onto Gianluca as he sleeps in bed. As he starts to stir, some tarantulas climb onto the bed and make their way to his face… fingers crossed for some “The Beyond” style mutilation! It’s never a good sign when you are praying for the child character to get bumped off so soon into a film but Gianluca is becoming quite insufferable… and he has bad teeth, which regular readers will know, I have zero tolerance for. Sadly the spiders are just a tease as when the gang rush into the bedroom following Gianluca’s screams for help, the blood and arachnids are nowhere to be seen and his face is in tact. Things aren’t looking quite so peachy for Mary though as her screams still aren’t being heard and she is beginning to look fairly frosty. Eventually Guido and Massimo do find her and open up the freezer just in time as she slumps forward into their arms. Massimo surveys the freezer suspiciously as we see the corpses are no longer there.

The next morning the group have the inevitable discussion about what is going on, how much of it is supernatural phenomenon and how much of it is simply due to stress, with most of the group agreeing the latter. They then decide to take another look around the hotel but can’t find anyone else, not even the man who let them in the previous night, the telephone line has been cut and all of the other rooms stuffed full of dust covered old furniture. “Something happened here last night… and not just last night” Kevin ponders to Massimo after they find a patch of blood outside… Shakespearean dialogue this ain’t. With that, the group decide that the best course of action is to leave the hotel but first Kevin and Massimo head off to the highway patrol to try and find a different way back avoiding the blocked roads caused by the landslides.

Whilst the pair are away, more strange things begin to happen at the hotel; Carla has more visions of murder and Gianluca sees the young boy at the window at the top of the hotel and goes to investigate. Gianluca finds the boy in the laundry room, sobbing rather unconvincingly but before Gianluca is able to find out what is wrong, one of the washing machines shoots steam across the room and the boy disappears. Things take a turn for the worse for Gianluca though as the doors in and out of the laundry room lock shut trapping him inside. Maybe this time he’ll come to a satisfyingly gory end… Sure enough the washing machines come to life and begin moving towards him amidst jets of steam. A bed sheet blows over Gianluca’s face and as he flays around trying to get it off he inadvertently puts his head inside one of the machines and as the drum begins to spin, it decapitates him! I’m not sure the logic behind this death really works but the little shit is dead so that’s all that matters.

Meanwhile in the town, Kevin finds out that the hotel has been closed for many years due to the owner being arrested in 1969 because of a series of murders at the hotel, killing the guests for their money and the owner subsequently committed suicide a week before his trial. After flicking through some old newspapers it becomes clear that the monk, the young boy and the mysterious man who opened the hotel for the gang were all victims of the murderous hotel owner. It also turns out that the heads of the victims were never found and we are led to believe they are still hidden somewhere in the hotel.

Back at the hotel, Guido has got the stove fired up in the kitchen, which doesn’t seem to have anyway of dispersing the smoke so surely the room will eventually just fill up with toxic air? Before that can happen though, Carla has another vision, this time of the monk being chased by the axe welding hotel owner. The monk is played by actor/stunt man Hal Yamanouchi who has had a relatively fruitful career making appearances in films such as “Emmanuelle And The Last Cannibals”, “2019: After The Fall Of New York”, “2020 Texas Gladiators”, as well as American movies “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” and “The Wolverine” to name just a few.

Whilst Carla recovers from her vision, we see that Mary isn’t having a great time either as she is being chased around the hotel by the mysterious man from earlier, now holding a large kitchen knife. She manages to shake him off, only to then run into the monk who tries to strangle her. Luckily she again manages to escape and runs into Carla’s bedroom for safety. A woman is having a shower in the bathroom and Mary flings back the curtain to reveal another victim of the hotel owner, this time the woman from Carla’s earlier vision brandishing some scissors which she plunges into Mary’s chest. As Mary falls back into the room, the mysterious man enters and slashes her throat with his knife. Rest in peace Mary.

Shortly after, Carla and Guido find beheaded Mary and decide they must take their chances and leave immediately. Of course, the car won’t start and the pair are then lured back into the hotel when they see the young boy at the window again. This time the boy leads Guido into the basement before disappearing, much to Guido’s confusion. As he begins to search the basement for the young boy, Guido steps on a bear trap, its sharp teeth clamping around his leg.

Guido screams relentlessly for Carla’s help but alas, the pair are unable to open the trap. Guido then seems to calm down pretty quickly, telling Carla “everything is fine, no sweat.” In fact, this happens a lot in the movie, characters go from being perfectly relaxed to quite snappy with each other, or visa versa, in the space of two lines of dialogue. Later on in the film Massimo approaches Carla and looks like he is about to punch her only to put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

Carla leaves Guido in the basement and runs around the hotel for a bit whilst being chased by the monk. I say “chased”, he just sort of walks towards her very slowly with his arms outstretched. Still, it’s enough to make Carla lose her shit and scream a lot. Carla eventually goes into one of the bedrooms and hides in a wardrobe. We then see the return of the mutilated arm which pushed Mary into the freezer. This time it opens up the wardrobe and half heartedly reaches in but doesn’t make contact with Carla as she presses herself against the back. It’s never explained whose arm it is… it looks a bit like Dr. Freudstein from Lucio Fulci’s “The House By The Cemetery” so we will go with that.

Back in the basement, Guido starts to get spooked as a rocking chair begins to move by itself and an old radio clicks itself on. These things seem pretty minor though when a chainsaw starts up and slowly moves towards Guido at head height. Of course, Guido fails to move out of the way in time and suffers the same fate as his girlfriend Mary.

As darkness falls, Kevin and Massimo arrive back at the hotel with Kevin bringing a metal detector in from the car for some reason. Kevin, Massimo and Carla search the hotel and find the bodies of Guido and Gianluca which sends Carla into hysterics once again. Never fear, Kevin is on hand to give Carla some good old fashioned woman management by slapping her around the face. The remaining trio decide they should cut their losses and get the hell out of there but every door and window now appears to be blocked with concrete. Despite numerous efforts by the men to break through it with an axe, the concrete won’t budge.

It finally dawns on Kevin that the victims of the hotel killer are unable to rest in peace as their heads weren’t recovered and they are punishing our “heroes” for the sins of others. With that in mind, Kevin tells Carla and Massimo to go to one of the bedrooms whilst he begins searching the walls of the hotel with his metal detector. A couple of things; firstly, how can he be sure the heads are hidden in the walls? They could be anywhere! I think history of serial killers has probably proven that body parts are more likely to be buried under the floor boards or in the garden. Secondly, even if the heads were hidden in the wall, how does Kevin know they would be encased in something made of metal? Because the plot says so, that’s why.

As luck would have it, down in the basement Kevin gets a reading as he waves his detector over the wall. He begins smashing the wall with his axe and sure enough, finds a metal case with the heads of the victims inside. The hotel begins to fall apart now with fire and steam shooting out of any pipe or hole available.

In a panic, Carla and Massimo leave the bedroom and head to the kitchen where Massimo opens the dumb waiter to see if they can escape through the hatch, only for the door to drop down violently chopping his head off. This movie sure is all about the decapitations! The murder victims now appear in the room and begin closing in on Carla.

Meanwhile Kevin spends a lot of time fannying around in the basement before deciding to direct a gas pipe into the metal case and sets it alight to destroy the heads. How Kevin survives the explosion is beyond me. As the heads burn, the victims disappear just before they surround Carla. The concrete also disappears and Kevin and Carla are reunited.

The film then cuts quite abruptly to a psychiatric hospital where Kevin is visiting Carla who is a patient there. Why Carla was committed and Kevin wasn’t is not clear. Carla explains that the doctor has said she can leave in a few days time but she still remains troubled that the press didn’t publish the whole story of what happened at the hotel. After the pair comfort each other that things really are over and everything will be ok, we pan out to see the young boy watching over them on the roof of the hospital. The end.

My feelings on this film are very similar to that of Lenzi’s other “Doomed house” entry: “The House Of Witchcraft”. The film is mediocre at best but there is something quite comforting about that. It’s inoffensive, tells a simple story and does it to an acceptable standard. The plot doesn’t make much sense and it’s more of an excuse to go from one beheading scene to another. Not all of the scares work, and certainly Betty’s spring on to my lap during my first viewing was the nearest to scaring my pants off as the DVD cover states. Maybe it’s me but the image of a gormless young boy repeatedly appearing at a window isn’t really that scary.

The acting is below average, the dubbing (featuring some voices which will be familiar to anyone that has seen even a handful of 80s Italian horror movies, including Ted Russoff who sticks out like a sore thumb) is bad and the dialogue is often awkward but with a film like this it only adds to my enjoyment. I did feel bad wanting Gianluca to die but when characters are so annoying and unlikable like he is, who can blame me? The film doesn’t have any striking imagery like the snow covered basement scene in “The House Of Witchcraft” which is a shame but there is an eerie and oppressive feel about the hotel, even if it is sparsely dressed and the way it is shot is slightly pedestrian. The countryside shots look nice too.

If you love decapitations then this is certainly the film for you. Lenzi clearly felt they had mastered the effect and ran with it here. Sadly not all of the fake heads are covered that well and when the camera dwells on them the illusion is ruined. The effect works best when it comes quick and out of the blue, like Massimo’s dumb waiter accident.

The score by Claudio Simonetti (under his Claude Young pseudonym) is very good and ramps up the tension and action when required. He even manages to make some of the endless driving scenes seem interesting. Having said that, some of the cues are repeated from “The House Of Witchcraft” and I recognised one piece in particular that was lifted from Lamberto Bava’s cult classic “Demons” but what the hell, they work here too. This may have also been the case with “The House Of Witchcraft” so pardon my ignorance if I missed it.

If you are looking for something to pass an hour and a half you could do much worse than this although I suspect my threshold for tedium is more than most and Carla’s incessant screaming could become trying to some. Admittedly gore hounds or fans of Lenzi’s more controversial movies (Cannibal Ferox, Eaten Alive et al) will be disappointed as this film is very tame in comparison but there’s just something about it that works for me. Lenzi’s made a few movies like this in the late 80s such as the aforementioned “The House Of Witchcraft”, “Ghosthouse” and “Hell’s Gate”, and whilst being nothing groundbreaking and to the average viewer, may seem dull, I find them hugely enjoyable. As I said about “The House Of Witchcraft”, what’s wrong with a nice warm blanket of mediocrity once in a while. I would probably recommend “The House Of Witchcraft” over this flick but if you enjoyed that one then I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of this.

Rest in peace Betty, we still miss you every day.