Found footage and sorority Halloween horror houses

Here are two more flicks to add to my page of holiday horror. The Houses October Built would be an even better title for a Halloween horror film if it were a better movie. And the flick American Horror House should just go by its alternate title, Sorority Horror House…which also deserves to be the name of a better movie.

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT (2014)

If you’re looking for a Halloween themed found footage film, don’t start with The Houses October Built. Don’t even end with it. The hour and half plot about a group of friends driving across country in an RV to find underground extreme haunted Halloween attractions is excessively padded with footage of them actually going through haunted attractions.

Whenever they are about to have a threatening run-in with haunters who don’t want them coming around with their cameras, the camera cuts off and the next thing we know, they’re back safely in the RV. WTF? This happens again and again and again (in this and pretty much every other found footage flick these days).

The only element that could have saved The Houses October Built is this fricking chick dressed up as some sort of scary porcelain doll. The movie really seems like it has an angle when **SPOILERS AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK** the same girl keeps showing up at the haunted attractions they visit no matter what state they are in!

And right at the end, “monsters” from numerous attractions they’ve been to reappear at their final stop! Is it something supernatural? It SHOULD have been, because that would have been a great premise…haunted attractions across the country actually being “haunted” by the same demonic entities and we common folk don’t even know it. Instead, this overhyped flick just goes for the usual abrupt found footage unexplained ending and what appears to be our cast falling victim to simply angry haunters in costumes.

On the bright side, we get to see this bearded beary guy dance around in pink boxer briefs in one scene.

But best of all, one chick has a good line about every haunted attraction ending with a typical lame chainsaw wielding maniac. It would have been deliciously ironic if the film had ended with her almost getting away from the baddies—when a chainsaw psycho leaps out of nowhere. The end.

AMERICAN HORROR HOUSE (aka: Sorority Horror House) (2012)

Way back when, Morgan Fairchild played a bitchy sorority chick in supernatural/occult sorority flick The Initiation of Sarah (which I blog about here). Well Morgan has graduated, and is now playing the bitchy house mother/landlord of a supernatural/occult sorority in American Horror House.

This is one wacky mess of a movie. It opens with creepy dolls and slaughtered bodies in bed then moves to modern times (you may feel old when it’s referenced that the 20-year anniversary of the tragedy was 1993). Morgan and her sorority are transforming their house into a haunted attraction for a big Halloween party. While Halloween might not be at the forefront of the movie, this is definitely one big house of horrors that doesn’t need any transforming in the haunted department. We get:

• Killer violin string. Awesome.
• Yellow raincoat/clear mask costume stolen from Alice, Sweet Alice.
• Lesbian flirtation and pledges in bikinis.
• Little girl ghost corpse.
• College ghost girl with huge tongue.

• Man-sized Teddy bear killer.
• Scary janitor-looking ghost.
• Killer toolbox.
• CGI bugs spraying from a ghost’s mouth.
• A party massacre like something out of Hellraiser III.

American Horror House literally has everything, including a kitchen sink! And this one actually bleeds. Even though the movie sucks, there are plenty of cheesy jump scares and gore that will make the tweens squeal with delight (I know I did). Plus, a majority of the young cast has a nice horror resume.

But the real reason to watch is to see that Morgan Fairchild can still spit out the best one-liners despite the fact that she can’t move a muscle in her face.