The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

THE HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES

WRITER: Paul Harrison and Thomas J. Kelly

DIRECTOR: Paul Harrison

STARRING: John Ireland as Eric Hartman

Faith Domergue as Gayle

John Carradine as Mr. Price

Carole Wells as Anne

Jerry Stricker as David

Charles MacAulay as Chris

QUICK CUT: While filming a movie, a cast and crew have to deal with the trouble causes by the residents of the house.

THE MORGUE

Eric Hartman - The director of our movie with in a movie. A difficult man to work with who will keep at it until he has his shot.

Gayle - An aging actress who is finding less work, but has a long history with Hartman, both on and off the screen.

David - A young crewmember on the picture who has a fascination with occult books.

Edgar Price - The caretaker fot the Beal mansion, and keeper of the family history

If there’s fewer than seven corpses in this movie, I will be MOST displeased.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! To be honest, I had other plans this month, but decided two school themed movies, while appropriate for September, was a bit much, so I dug into my pile of movies I always have next to me, and came up with this seventies flick that seemed like a good alternative. So let's jump right into House of Seven Corpses.

The credits kick things off with a montage of six deaths, and including one that will become clear shortly, are the eponymous seven corpses, that comprise the backstory of the Beal family. I'll summarise here, lots of bad shenanigans lead to many murders over the course of the years, and the movie leads into teasing the seventh death.

We watch as a woman in a black cloak performs black rites of some sort, watches a vision in her floortal, and when it isn't what she wants to see, she pulls out a gun and moves to kill herself.

But before we can have our seventh corpse, a gravely voice calls out, that's not how it happened! and the director yells cut.

YEP! It's a movie within a movie, and the movie is dramatising the events of the Beal family deaths. The voice is the caretaker for the house, played by John Carradine, as Mister Price. And yes, they make the joke y'all are thinking right now.

Filming a movie about an obviously cursed family, all with tragic ends, in the very house where it happened? That can only end in puppies and happiness, I'm sure.

Price gives them a tour and tells them about the six deaths we just saw, and Mrs. Beal's, which he interrupted. It's a nice bit of exposition to give context, to events we’ve already seen.

After he finishes and leaves, the crew find a secret door back to the séance room, and this is a plot point that will never again be revisited in any significant way.

Someone spots a prop of the 'evil eye' and the director says he's using it in the film, despite it being bad luck.

"So what's the name of this movie, anyways?" "Asking For It: The Movie."

David and Anne poke around the room a bit, and find a bunch of magic books just kinda sitting there. And David starts reading out of one called the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Huh, I think I may have seen this before.

The director looks at the book and says hey, we should use some of these in the movie. YEAH NOTHING CAN GO WRONG THERE.

We watch as they film a few scenes, which don't really add anything to the movie, but at least there's some fun behind the scenes-ness to it, and as I said, reading the book is bad

Is this Atlas Shrugged?? How could you?!

They wrap for the day, the actors retire to their rooms, with David grabbing the Book of the Dead to do some more reading. As one does.

Hartman sees there's some good moonlight outside, and drags some crew out to get atmospheric shots, and any second now this movie will move things along.

Anne interrupts David's reading though when she sees Price lurking around the family plot, and disappear down into a grave.

The least surprising things in this movie is John Carradine going to sleep in a grave.

While filming yet another scene, they find half of Gayle's dead cat, next to a broken piece of headstone. For some reason, this makes the director blame Price, and he goes searching for the caretaker.

Hartman rummages around, and suddenly Price appears from one of the secret doors, and he then takes the director down to his workshop. I know I know, I said they're never seen again, and really, they're not, it's just where Price likes to hang out. They're so pointless.

The one thing of note here is Price says there are eight graves in the family plot, but onl seven headstones, and he has no idea who Number Eight is.

Price says they may be in danger, he's seen signs, the cat...Hartman asks, what is it? A ghost? The devil? A vampire??

Once Hartman returns to the main house, he finds everyone sitting around, since the star of his movie has decided to call things quits after finding her half a cat.

He confronts Gayle, and basically plays the "you'll never work in this town again" card, thanks to her age, and she comes back to set to film more scenes.

Finally, after more filming shenanigans, David reads more from the book, and stumbles upon an actual passage that actually does something, causing the ground to shake.

During the filming of the next scene, the ground continues shaking, thanks to continuing to read that same passage. Price goes to the graveyard to investigate, and finally someone dies in this movie, when a hand bursts out of the ground and chokes him out.

What is with all that rumbling?? You're loud enough to wake the dead!!

In the movie within the movie, a character played by an actor played by an actor is playing a zombie brought back from the dead as well, and there is some really nice intercutting between the 'real' zombie and the movie zombie.

The filmmakers wrap principle photography for the night, and once again most retire to their rooms, while Eric and David head to the graveyard for more B-roll.

But at least we have an honest to gosh zombie wandering around, who picks off a few of the crew while that's going on.

Excuse me, can you point me in the direction of craft services?

The undead makes his way upstairs, and Gayle can hear all the commotion it's causing, and she thinks it's Hartman playing a prank or something. So she gets a bit of a shock when she steps out of her room and finds a zombie on the stairs.

Miller hears THAT commotion, and he goes out to see what all the fuss is about, figuring it's just her finding the second half a cat.

Gayle grabs a gun, sneaks around the hallways, and puts about a half dozen bullets into Chris when he startles her. Ahh, the accidental murder, always a fave.

After her whoopsie doodle, Gayle backs away, right into the comforting arms of her zombie friend, who is more than happy to help her take the pain away...by murder hugs!

Meanwhile, Anne hears all THIS commotion going on after she gets out of the shower, and it's her turn to wander the halls for a bit.

She eventually finds Gayle hanging, and I appreciate there being at least some echoes with the original deaths.

Outside, the filming at the graveyard continues, and the pan over with the light to reveal the dead Carradine is nicely done, but *not being night* does undermine it just a bit.

David notices the empty grave, and...suddenly tries to push the director in. He fails miserably, yet he keeps trying, until eventually Hartman tosses him inside instead.

He's not really sure WHY he was trying to toss Hartman in the grave, and eventually the director brushes some dirt away and we learn the grave is for someone named...David!

So uh, um, was uh, David a lost Beal returning for revenge? Is he possessed by a spirit encouraging to get ITS revenge? Did he just feel like chucking his director down a hole?? Is “David” the eighth name, revealed by brushing off the barest bit of dirt, making me question how it wasn’t known?? None of these things are answered, and this is where my second level of frustration begins.

Zombie David now climbs out of the hole, so now we have TWO zombie Davids, and I just...I don't get this at all. Or is this the first zombie, traveled through the secret passages?

The director runs back to the house, and after finding all his dead cast and crew, he gets a camera dropped on him from the third floor balcony.

His entire undeveloped film stock, exposed to light. This is the TRUE horror of this movie

And I just...what was the point of all that? What even was the story? Why did anything in this movie happen...well, I mean, beyond reading from a spellbook.

Oh, and David, whichever one, but I guess the new one, although he looks like the long dead one, scoops up Anne's body and walks off into the night with her.

He heads down into his empty grave, and I guess there's room enough for two down there, otherwise this is gonna get gramped.

This is such an obtuse movie.

I can’t wait for you to meet my parents, they are just dying to meet you!!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks solid enough for something from the early 70s,

Audio: A perfectly fine audio mix.

Sound Bite: "Trust me, dying is easy. Living is hard."

Body Count: I decided against skipping over the six bodies in the opening credits, since they’re all out of context and quick, but I do note them here as occurring at least.

1 - A *whopping* hour and two minutes and we get our first real demise, as Carradine gets choked by a corpse

2 - Danny gets killed by a zombie in the equipment truck

3 - Tommy gets groped by the zombie

4 - And the third crewman.

5 - Actress shoots Mr. Miller accidentally

6 - Gayle is found hanged

7 - Hartman is crushed by a camera

8 - Anne found dead in the water

Best Corpse: They’re all kinda unremarkable? The best deaths are the ones in the credits, honestly.

Blood Type - D: There’s a bit of blood when people get stabbed, and ironically MORE blood in the fake movie during scenes.

Drink Up! every time the movie within a movie films a scene

Movie Review: I…I just do not get this movie. It is absolutely, 100% a well made movie. Well shot, well directed, the dialogue is good, the acting is good, but I have NO idea what happened in the movie. I mean, I obviously understand the EVENTS, but nothing is explained, the movie within a movie contributes nothing. Am I wrong? Did I miss something? Is it all me? This is like two separate stories that have the barest connections. There’s genuinely something here, but I don’t know what it is, and it could be a lot better. Two out of five dead Davids.

Entertainment Value: I mean, the movie making scenes are a lot of fun. Everything in the movie is fine, there’s just nothing connecting anything. Carradine is always a delight. Watching the scenes is fun. Once the zombie shows up, it’s a welcome bit of chaos. It’s definitely more entertaining than it should be. Three out of five Tibetan Books of the Dead.