Horror Movie Review: The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

Even back in the early 70s people were still making the terrible mistake of using an actual haunted house to film a movie. That’s the basic premise of The House of Seven Corpses, a 1974 horror film directed by Paul Harrison and starring John Ireland, Faith Domergue and John Carradine.

A rough watch simply because it has zero chills and is often down-right boring. It sees a film crew awaken a zombie by accident after reading from ‘the book of the dead’ during a scene.

Playing with the whole ‘film within a film’ concept. The fairly exciting opening shows how the house got its reputation but is revealed to be part of the shoot. Inaccurately portrayed though according to the caretaker (Carradine).

If you’re expecting the film to get juicy from this point, you’re going to be very disappointed as it has way too much down time. The cast instead spend large sections of the movie talking about the issues that come with making a low-budget horror film. How droll.

Eventually the zombie in question starts to take care of the filmmakers one by one. Leading to a finale that is as flat and disappointing as the majority of the movie.

While it’s far from a complete mess or lacking some merit, the problem is that it just doesn’t do enough to excite or intrigue. A run of the mill horror that lacks much of what makes any movie compelling. The cast are average with the word cheap coming to mind. No-one really wanted to spend much money which in turn meant no-one really wanted to give it their all. After watching it, you can hardy blame them.

The story is distinctly forgettable and you’ll often overlook that there is even an antagonist in it for all the chatter and bickering that takes place. Add to the poor visual quality makes The House of Seven Corpses a bargain bin movie at best.

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