- Directed by: Paul Harrison
- Written by: Paul Harrison, Thomas J. Kelly
- Stars: John Ireland, Faith Domergue, John Carradine
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
- Watch It: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMP9rfEeFYo
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A film company making a movie about a weird family with a lot of unusual death history in the same family mansion where the deaths happened runs into trouble when deaths start happening to the cast and crew.
It’s kind of interesting with them making a film within a film, and the setting is great. But the movie is slow with not a lot happening in the first hour. Then things happen and aren’t explained very well or at all.
Neither of us cared much for this one.
Spoilery Synopsis
We see random-looking scenes of paintings and of people dying as the credits roll.
We cut to a woman doing some kind of ritual. She’s conjuring the evil and cursed serpent to appear. When an evil face appears in her circle, she stomps all over it. Cut! It’s just a bunch of people filming a movie, but old Edgar Price says that’s not the way it really happened. The director, Eric Hartman, yells at the old man for ruining the scene.
Edgar, the caretaker for the house, explains the history of the family and the way various family members all died. The paintings and the manner of deaths are what we saw during the credits. All the Beal family are dead now, at least as far as Edgar knows. They all check out their rooms and where they’re going to stay. There’s no electricity, but the water runs.
David and Anne look at all the black magic books. One of them is the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and they start reading it. They look up some lines to read in the movie and use that instead of the script. Gayle and Anne read the chant while the film crew records.
The leading man, Chris, goes up to his room and takes off his wig and mustache before getting drunk. David keeps reading from the occult books, but Anne doesn’t like it. They stop to watch old Edgar skulking around the graveyard outside. They watch him open up a tomb and climb down inside.
Gayle’s cat gets out of her room, and she goes looking for it. She runs into Chris, who tries to take advantage of her, at least until Eric interrupts. Eric and Gayle have a history. They do find half of the cat the next morning during a shoot.
Eric thinks Edgar killed the cat, but Edgar denies it. He explains that there are eight graves in the cemetery, but only seven headstones. He doesn’t know who’s buried in the eighth. Edgar warns that the whole film crew might be in danger from the occult in this place.
Gayle wants to quit the movie, but Eric explains that stopping now will cost him a fortune. He begs her to stay one more night to finish the film. She stays, but she’s not happy about it.
They shoot more scenes later that day. David keeps reading that book. During another scene later, Gayle reads aloud from the book to bring another character back from the dead, and Edgar notices something weird going on in the cemetery. Outside, a real hand reaches up from the real cemetery and grabs Edgar. Inside, the filming goes great, outside, the dead rise.
Eric has some more stuff to shoot, so they can’t leave tonight. The ghoul kills one of the cameramen outside in a truck, then two more inside. Gayle thinks Eric is outside her door wanting to fool around, but it’s not Eric. She sneaks downstairs with her pistol and falls down the steps before shooting Chris repeatedly. As she screams at what she’s done, the creature grabs her from behind.
Anne soon finds Gayle hanging from a noose. David and Eric are outside filming in the cemetery, and they find Edgar’s body there next to an empty grave. For some reason, David attacks Eric and falls into a grave marked “David Beal.” Yes, David’s been dead for two hundred years. Eric runs back to the house to find his camera crew all murdered. Worse yet, all the film is open and exposed! Just then, the zombie drops a huge lighting fixture on Eric’s head.
The zombie talks past Anne, who has drowned in the river. He carries her back to the graveyard, and the movie ends there.
Brian’s Commentary
I don’t think the actual “Tibetan Book of the Dead” has that much Latin in it– or any for that matter.
We’re well over an hour into the film before anything supernatural actually starts.
I thought the classic cameras, lighting, sound, and film equipment from the 70s were really interesting, far more than the story. It’s all very meta with the film crew and actors making a cheesy horror film, but the actual horror elements and the plot take a backseat to the on-screen filmmaking. A lot of the film feels like filler to make the movie feature-length.
The only believable performance is from John Ireland, as Eric, playing a grouchy man who doesn’t want to be there. It probably wasn’t a stretch. John Carradine plays the same character he played in all his 70s films.
Very, very dull.
Kevin’s Commentary
I agree, the 1970s tech is cool to see. The mansion setting is cool too.
The concept is interesting, but they didn’t do enough interesting things with it. The first hour is really slow and not enough happens in the last third, the acting is kind of bad, and there isn’t a good explanation of why any of the strange events are happening.
I didn’t find this satisfying at all.
Be the first to comment on "1973 The House of Seven Corpses"