Tag Archives: haunted house

The Shining (1980) | Stanley Kubrick

January 17, 2022Haunted Hotelscolorado, Danny Lloyd, Diane Johnson, dysfunctional family, ghost, haunted house, hotel, Jack Nicholson, maze, murder, new job, Scatman Crothers, Shelley Duvall, Stanley Kubrickqwipster

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A dysfunctional family is hired as the caretakers for an empty, isolated Rocky Mountain hotel, the Overlook, during the snowy season. Young Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd) is gifted with ESP, his father Jack (Jack Nicholson) is a tempestuous alcoholic, and his mother Wendy (Shelley Duvall) is racked with guilt. Jack hopes writing a successful play will rectify his dreary life. The hotel has a history of evil, including Grady, a former caretaker who slaughtered his wife and daughters. The Torrances experience supernatural occurrences, enticed by the ghosts of the Overlook to repeat its evil history. Stanley Kubrick co-writes and directs.

The Changeling (1980) | Peter Medak

September 19, 2021Haunted Housescomposer, George C. Scott, ghost, grief, haunted house, inheritance, Jean Marsh, John Colicos, Madeleine Sherwood, mansion, Melvyn Douglas, murder, Peter Medak, pianist, Trish Van Devereqwipster

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The Changeling concerns an esteemed New York pianist/composer named John Russell (George C. Scott) who accepts a lectureship position in Seattle for solitude and restoration following the deaths of his wife and daughter in a roadside accident. Claire Norman (Trish Van Devere), a volunteer at the local Historical Preservation Society, moves him into a massive old Victorian-Gothic mansion located outside the city that hasn’t had anyone living in it in at least twelve years. Russell soon discovers that the house isn’t as uninhabited as he thought, as things begin to occur (banging noises, bathroom water taps, a boy’s image is glimpsed within the water) though it could also be his grief-fueled imagination. He’s told that the house has a history and doesn’t want people living in it.

Later, Russell senses the house wants to tell him something. He discovers a locked secret room that resembles a nursery, containing a rusty wheelchair and an antique music box that plays a song he’d been composing since he entered the house. Claire tries to help, digging into the sordid history of the house, including a revealing seance that leads them to make contact with the spirit within who provides more clues to the 70-year-old mystery that must be solved to find peace.

House II: The Second Story (1987)

September 1, 2021Haunted HousesAmy Yasbeck, Arye Gross, Bill Maher, caterpillar, caterpuppy, crystal skull, electrician, Ethan Wiley, haunted house, Jayne Modean, John Ratzenberger, Jonathan Stark, Lar Park-Lincoln, nheritance, pop star, pterodactyl, Royal Dano, skullqwipster

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House II opens in the early 1950s, where we find Charles and Judith McLaughlin handing away their baby Jesse to adoption. This is to protect their child from retribution by a powerful ghost named Slim Razor, who has appeared in the couple’s mansion demanding they hand over a crystal skull. After the couple confronts Slim to reveal that they don’t have it or know where it is, Slim kills them.

Flash forward twenty-five years, and their aspiring artist son Jesse is all grown up, Jesse moves into his inherited but long-dormant home with his girlfriend Kate. Odd artifacts about, including a one that is obviously missing from a mantelpiece. Jesse and Kate are soon visited by Jesse’s rambunctious friend Charlie and his pop-singer girlfriend Lana, aka Puce Glitz.

While looking through the family’s photo albums in the home, Jesse spies pictures of his namesake, his great-great-grandfather Jesse, who was an outlaw from the old West who earned his keep finding lost treasure, including a crystal skull with giant jewels in its eye sockets. Slim Razor also factors into the pictures, elder Jesse’s partner, and details of their falling out over the ownership of the skull are revealed.

An old book on Mexican legends tells more stories about the skull that will unlock the mysteries of the universe and grant everlasting life to those who possess it, as well as the ancient Aztec practice of burial with one’s jewels. Jesse and Charlie determine to dig up the grave of elder Jesse to find the skull. Unearthed, they find the elder Jesse reanimated to life, preserved by the skull’s magical powers, though looking quite old. However, it also returns the spirits of others who’ve been looking for the skull from various times and dimensions, including Slim Razor, who is out to claim what Jesse stole from him prior to abandoning him into the Mojave desert to die.

House (1986) | Steve Miner

August 18, 2021Haunted Housesauthor, Eric Silver, George Wendt, guilt, haunted house, haunting, house, Kay Lenz, lost child, Mark Silver, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign, ptsd, Richard Moll, Susan French, Vietnam, vietnam vet, William Katt, writerqwipster

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An elderly artist named Elizabeth Hopper (Susan French) is found having hanged herself in the three-story Victorian house in Marin County, California, that she claimed is haunted. Hopper’s nephew, a famous horror novelist named Roger Cobb (William Katt), inherits the house and decides to move in so that he can have the solitude necessary to write his next book, a memoir of his harrowing time as an American soldier in Vietnam. His publisher as well as his fans don’t want him to write but he finds something is compelling him to get it down on paper.

Cobb underwent several traumatic experiences: his son Jimmy (Eric & Mark Silver) disappeared a year ago at his aunt’s home and is presumed dead. The ordeal resulted in a separation from his television soap opera actress wife Sandy (Kay Lenz). In the home at night, Roger begins seeing things, unnerving things, around the house. They include harrowing flashbacks to his Vietnam War days where he let down a fellow troop named Big Ben (Richard Moll). Ben vowed revenge against Roger for abandoning him to be tortured by the Viet Cong. Harold (George Wendt), the next-door neighbor, is a bit nosy and keeps coming around as Roger tries to catch these apparitions in the act. Roger is sure that his son is still around the house somewhere and that finding him will redeem what has happened to his life since his disappearance.

Pulse (1988) | Paul Golding

June 19, 2021Evil Electricityapplicance, Cliff De Young, divorce, electricity, haunted house, Joey Lawrence, Matthew Lawrence, Paul Golding, Roxanne Hart, television, troubled childqwipster

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Electricity lines between the houses in a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood allow an unseen but powerful malevolent force to enter homes, where it begins twisting the house’s wiring and everything that is plugged into it to its liking. Eventually, it begins using the home’s appliances to torture the inhabitants within. In one home on a cul-de-sac, the father went crazy and began destroying his home. Now it seems to be threatening the home across the street, where an 11-year-old boy named David (Joey Lawrence) is visiting his divorced father (Cliff De Young) for the summer. David seems to know what’s going on, but he can’t leave until he convinces his skeptical father before they’re stuck in a high-voltage death trap.

Roxanne Hart and Matthew Lawrence also appear in this 1988 eerie story written and directed by Paul Golding.

Amityville 3-D (1983) | Richard Fleischer

May 30, 2021AmityvilleCandy Clark, David Ambrose, demon, Dino de Laurentiiis, flies, haunted house, hoax, John Harkins, Lori Loughlin, Meg Ryan, mythbusters, Neill Barry, ouija, Richard Fleischer, Robert Joy, Tess Harper, The Amityville Horror, Tony Robertsqwipster

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John Baxter is a recently divorced journalist working for an investigative magazine called Reveal. Baxter’s latest assignment exposes a seance scam operating within the abandoned Amityville home on Long Island, New York. Afterward, Baxter finds that the house is immensely affordable due to its sordid history of terrible things happening to those who’ve been inside. Baxter, apparently needing to find a new place following his divorce that has fourteen rooms covering three floors, moves into the house certain that all prior calamities were coincidences, delusions, and hoaxes. That bottomless pit in the basement others have claimed a portal to hell? Oh, that’s just an abandoned well. It has plenty of space for himself and his teenage daughter when she visits, as well as solitude for writing the “great American novel” he’s been talking about for years. Others around him experience strange events and implore him to leave. He won’t because he’s convinced the house’s reputation is causing mass hysteria. Unfortunately, with his daughter staying with him on occasion, he soon discovers that being wrong might be dead wrong.

Amityville II: The Possession (1982) | Damiano Damiani

May 24, 2021Amityvilleabuse, Brent Katz, Burt Young, Damiano Damiani, demon, Diane Franklin, Erika Katz, evil, exorcism, fratricide, haunted house, incest, Jack Magner, James Olson, Leonardo Cimino, matricide, Moses Gunn, murder, patricide, possession, Rutanya Alda, The Amityville Horror, Tommy Lee Wallaceqwipster

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In this prequel of a sort to The Amityville Horror (1979), the dysfunctional Montelli family moves into their new home and finds many curious things right away, including every window being nailed shut and a secret room in the basement of the house that is full of flies, muck and smells to high heaven (or down to low Hell). The longer they stay, the more they begin to witness strange events, and bicker violently with one another, until the eldest son of the family, Sonny ( Jack Magner), actually begins to exhibit behavior that may not be his own, including a desire to kill his abusive father, Anthony (Burt Young), and defile his younger teenage sister, Trish (Diane Franklin). Before things get completely out of hand, the mother requests that a local priest, Father Adamsky (James Olson), come out to investigate the supernatural events of the place, but without the backing of his superiors, he’s going it alone against what appears to be a portal to unfathomable evil that resides below the house. Rutanya Alda and Andrew Prine also appear. Directed by Damiano Damiano from a script by Tommy Lee Wallace.

The Amityville Horror (1979) | Stuart Rosenberg

May 10, 2021Amityvillebased on a book, based on a true story, demon, demonic possession, Don Stroud, flies, haunted house, imaginary friend, James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Murray Hamilton, new home, pig, priest, Rod Steiger, spirit, The Amityville Horrorqwipster

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The Amityville Horror is based on a popular novel by Jay Anson with a little longer title, “The Amityville Horror – A True Story”. The true story is, at this point, well known to be fictitious, but it did give the public quite a rise for a while. In the story, a young man ends up shooting his parents and sibling while they slept in the middle of the night for reasons even he couldn’t begin to explain. The horrific events shocked the small town, but the house was still deemed worthy for sale. Enter the Lutz family, who buy the house because it is going for a relatively cheaper rate than if it didn’t have the malevolent stigma, but they can’t pass up the price. However, weird things start happening, starting with the fact that the preacher (Rod Steiger,) who comes to bless the house is scared out of his wits, soon after suffering from an unknown ailment he feels has been inflicted by the evil within the house. The Lutz family themselves start exhibiting weird behavior themselves, with the father, George (James Brolin), always feeling cold, and having little motivation to do anything more than chop wood for the fire. Doors and windows open and close, the daughter starts talking to an imaginary (?) friend, and the dog starts sniffing around the cellar trying to dig up something only he knows is there. Margot Kidder costars.

Beetlejuice (1988) | Tim Burton

March 16, 2021Kooky Spooksafterlife, Alec Baldwin, art, Beetlejuice, Catherine O'Hara, Connecticut, Danny Elfman, exorcist, exterminator, Geena Davis, ghost, Glenn Shadix, goth, haunted house, imp, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Keaton, Michael McDowell, sandworm, Tim Burton, Warren Skaaren, Winona Ryderqwipster

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Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) love the little home in the country they’ve built for themselves, but after they are killed in a freak accident and come back as ghosts, they are appalled to find that their house has been sold to a tasteless and unpleasant family, who plan one tearing down all they’ve built to redo the house in the tackiest way possible. Now they are determined to do what they can to scare away the family and serve out their 125-year term as apparitions before moving on to the next phase, but a wrench stops up the works when the new owners are pleased with the financial possibilities of the attraction of a haunted house, and it seems the more they scare these new inhabitants, the more amused they get. The Maitlands call on the services of Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), a crazy and psychotic ghoul who seems to do more harm than good for the Maitland’s tastes. Tim Burton directs.

Around the World in 80s Movies Podcast

A concise podcast reviewing the films released in the 1980s, with history, trivia, fun facts, and film critic Vince Leo's personal recollection with the era that defined a generation's taste in movies.

Tag Archives: haunted house

The Shining (1980) | Stanley Kubrick

The Changeling (1980) | Peter Medak

House II: The Second Story (1987)

House (1986) | Steve Miner

Pulse (1988) | Paul Golding

Amityville 3-D (1983) | Richard Fleischer

Amityville II: The Possession (1982) | Damiano Damiani

The Amityville Horror (1979) | Stuart Rosenberg

Beetlejuice (1988) | Tim Burton