Day 8 HOUSE & HOUSE 2

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

So yes, House, and House 2. Much like Critters, it’s a series that was best experienced only up to the sequel, and left alone completely after that point. Ignore the other sequels, seriously I cannot stress this enough. If you need a reason to stay away from it? Here’s a taste of a scene I remember as a kid from one of the sequels after House 2.

A bad man, trying to get the house and whatever wealth is inside, works for an even worse bad man. The even worse bad man has a bad cough and sounds/looks like crap. The bad man fails the even worse bad man and as punishment…..the even worse bad man tells his henchmen to hold a hose and cone to the bad mans mouth. The even worse bad man begins coughing up his phlegm and ooze into the cone and its fed down the tube to the bad man. After that moment? The bad man now has the same raspy cough as the even worse man. This is how you know the even worse bad man is….bad. It’s dumb and forgetful, it looked like it was filmed on a theater stage.

So lets talk about the two good ones!

Get ready for weirdness that never EVER has to make sense. Because believe me it doesn’t.

If you took the weird humor and random bits of madness from Evil Dead, and mixed it with a haunted house story and MASH. You’d get something resembling an idea of what this movie is.

HOUSE is about a man inheriting his Aunts home after she passes. By hanging herself. He goes to the house to help himself with writing his novel depicting his Vietnam combat experience, and to help clear his mind over the loss of his son and divorce from his wife.

At some point their son vanished while visiting this house and no one knows what happened to him, or where he went. It drove the parents apart from each other andhis own PTSD from the war just aided things. So the stage is clearly set. Troubled father trying to write a hard novel to get out, while clearing through an old house and dealing with his broken family.

So that’s the end of the seriousness. The rest of the film is random spoopy moments which, make little to no sense. They don’t tie specifically to anything or any moment. Only a little. We get a wall mounted Marlin that begins flipping and flopping around on the wall, which then has to be shot with a shotgun, exploding its stuffing everywhere. We also get a Lovecraftian demon in a closet, a caveman and dino. A prehistoric jungle in a closet, a psychotic gnarly ghoul of an ex wife, demon children and flying bat creatures.

Also Norm from CHEERS!!!

Seriously, Norm, from CHEERS.

The movie is told through moments of clarity and insanity. Which slowly unfold into our protagonist Dad Author discovering, there’s something not right with things, and his Aunt new this. She had a nasty fun habit of painting odd things, including one painting of a wormhole type setting and a well placed oil rag covering a super duper big time secret.

I can’t fully go into the story because It really IS a series of events mixed with a main story. Along with comedy setups. Just know that he has trouble writing his book, dealing with the craziness of the house, and signs that his son could still somehow be around, maybe even there in the house.

Which, spoilers for a movie from 1987, his son is! The well placed oil rag on the painting covered a screaming depiction of his son. So what happened to him? Well that’s where the main story and side story about the book collide.

Through flashbacks of his about the war, we discover Bull from Night Court was a war buddy of his, a kill crazy war buddy in fact. One night while the duo are on patrol, they come across enemy fire. Bull ends up getting downed and pleads with Author Dad to kill him, not wanting to let the Vietnamese to torture and kill him. But he just can’t do it. So he runs away scared, leaving his murder happy friend behind to scream at him for being a coward and how he’ll get him for this. So he does.

Somehow how, his vietnam friend finds a way, through the house to steal his son away to his realm. So now the author dad has to find his own way into this realm and get his son back.

So the two have their long awaited fight, while trying to keep his son safe, and thanks to some amazing effects work. We get a nice war time zombie fighting and shooting up a house. Leading us to a great climax between the two. When author dad grabs hold of one of his dead buddies grenades and feeds it to him, exploding his undead bits, closing the gateway and saving his son.

Happy ending indeed!

So what about this sequel you say? It has NOTHING to do with the first one. It doesn’t even take place in the same HOUSE!! It has NO ONE from the original. It’s an entirely different house ALL TOGETHER!!!

Does that mean this is like Troll 2? Hell no!

Troll 2 was the result of a misunderstanding by an italian director. This was intentional!

But it has just enough craziness and charm to hold up to the original, while also making it kid friendly. Kind of.

The main characters of this film are Dumb and Dumber. I refuse to call them anything else. I mean I could call the main protagonist dummy and the other friend On the Spectrum of douchebaggary. But we’ll just go with Dumb and Dumber.

So Dumb and his girlfriendmove into an old old mansion that has been in Dumbs family forever, soon after moving there, like immediately after moving there, Dumber comes to party and crash the place.

The duo end up uncovering a lot of relics from Dumb’s family and discover, a crystal skull. Which Dumb’s late great, great, great, great, great grandfather uncovered with a partner of his. Upon uncovering this relic they end up animating a mummified Grandpa Dumb. A very old time western figure. Who warns them about the curse associated with this Crystal Skull. Which they semi ignore and semi take seriously. By Dumber throwing a party. Which prompts a caveman into stealing the Skull, and then a tribes person getting it…which leads them to a not mayan pyramid and saving a damsel, because another girl was needed. Also a centipede dog.

I say again, a Centipede dog.

But it’s cute!

So now Great Grandpa Dumb, Centipede dog, and cute Pterodactyl. Because of course there is. Lay out the whole dark story of Great Grandpa’s adventure. Apparently Great Grandpa Dumb and his Partner Shooty McEvil, found the skull and began digging it up. Shooty McEvil double crossed Grandpa and he ended up burying himself with the skull to keep it out of evils hands.

Because it’s that dire and super cereal.

So just as surely as the sun always rises, and my life is a black abyss of failure from which there is no escape. Shooty McEvil shows up for his fortune, and because Evil needs to represent. So Dumb and Dumber begin a battle royal with Shooty McEvil, and Gramps ends up taking one for the team. But fret not! Because Dumb and Dumber triumph in the end and defeat McEvil. Burying Grandpa, and taking off with an 80’s take on a western hat, a deeper sense of meaning and life, and the not a mayan sacrifice girl. Oh also Centipede Dog and friend.

The movie forgets about Dumb’s girlfriend for a while, This movie tried to follow one story instead of multiple, but it could not contain the crazy. Like at all! Which is where this film delivers.

It may sound like I am crapping on the sequel because it wasn’t as fun as the original? But it is. Just for different reasons.

The first movie was weird and a lot of joined branching stories. This was one story and branching weirdness. But not so weird and terrifying kids couldn’t enjoy it. Which normally could be a bad thing, But not so much here. Gramps is a fun character, he has some fun moments and most of which are played from falling apart. I still believe he was ripped off by Peter Jackson in The Frighteners by the Hanging Judge. It wouldn’t surprise me honestly if it were. The protagonist best friend is hateful. Unlikable and somehow doesn’t sink the movie. He’s meant to be the cool guy, but he just. Isn’t.

The movie pulls a Halloween 3 which I admire it for. It takes the idea that crazy mystical weird shit can happen in any house. So not sticking with the original house as being the source of all this wackiness, was a good thing. Honestly the movie stands well on its own two legs and stands beside the champion that is the first film. I mean it’s pretty hard to outdue blowing up a Vietnam zombie cussing you out, but this one did well enough on it’s own.