All these one star reviews and claims of one of the worst movies ever are not accurate. You can go to the horror category at Netflix and Amazon Prime and 99% of those movies are far worse than this. I am not sure what people were expecting. It does borrow a little from poltergeist but so what? Movies borrow from each other all the time. Put Vincent Price with this same script and that alone would raise it two stars. That is how important acting is with low budget movies like Corman's. 4 to 5 stars is about right for this.
16 Reviews
For masochists or the mindless only!
tarryrob29 August 2003
Given that Roger Corman attached his name to this production, I had high hopes for this film. Corman directed many memorable low budget horror flicks in the 1960's. I particularly enjoyed his adaptations of Poe's stories such as `The House Of Usher,' and `The Pit And Pendulum' and `The Raven' which starred the late great Vincent Price. These films had solid acting, atmosphere, suspense, strong characterization, intriguing plot development and delivered some chilling moments. Sadly, `House Of The Damned,' for the most part, sacrifices these qualities in lieu of cheesy low budget special effects, gratuitous nudity and mindless gore topped with cliche fast edits and camera angles.
`House Of The Damned' starts off interestingly with some beautiful location shots in Ireland, but it's straight downhill from here. Unfortunately, instead of spending some time building atmosphere, creating characters we might care about, or building suspense - the director opts to begin running up the body count. After a brief introduction to the lead characters, a young couple and their daughter, the audience spends the balance of the film being bounced from one `spooky' event to another which, in this film, substitutes for coherent plot development. The lead characters are so ill conceived and are so badly acted - the audience doesn't care what happens to them. To make matters worse, the `spooky' events are either utterly cliché or unconvincing due to low tech - low budget special effects. The soundtrack has been lifted from `The Omen.' The plot, what little there is, borrows heavily from `Poltergeist' and `The Legend Of Hell House,' but lacks any of the qualities which made these films convincing.
If you interested in seeing well done haunted house flicks, I recommend you check out classics like `The Haunting (1963),' `The Innocents (1961) or look into Corman's early American International films and pass on `House Of The Damned' unless you're masochistic or mindless.
3 ½ out of 10.
Rob Rheubottom
Wpg, MB. Canada
`House Of The Damned' starts off interestingly with some beautiful location shots in Ireland, but it's straight downhill from here. Unfortunately, instead of spending some time building atmosphere, creating characters we might care about, or building suspense - the director opts to begin running up the body count. After a brief introduction to the lead characters, a young couple and their daughter, the audience spends the balance of the film being bounced from one `spooky' event to another which, in this film, substitutes for coherent plot development. The lead characters are so ill conceived and are so badly acted - the audience doesn't care what happens to them. To make matters worse, the `spooky' events are either utterly cliché or unconvincing due to low tech - low budget special effects. The soundtrack has been lifted from `The Omen.' The plot, what little there is, borrows heavily from `Poltergeist' and `The Legend Of Hell House,' but lacks any of the qualities which made these films convincing.
If you interested in seeing well done haunted house flicks, I recommend you check out classics like `The Haunting (1963),' `The Innocents (1961) or look into Corman's early American International films and pass on `House Of The Damned' unless you're masochistic or mindless.
3 ½ out of 10.
Rob Rheubottom
Wpg, MB. Canada
Low Budget Haunted House Horror.
drownsoda9028 December 2004
"House of the Damned" (also known as "Spectre") is one of your low budget haunted house horror flicks, filled with mediocre performances and cheap effects. It is about a family that inherits an old Irish mansion, and after moving in begin to experience strange phenomenon and ghostly apparitions, including the ghost of a young girl who was murdered and buried within a wall in the mansion's basement. The couple's young daughter is then whisked away into some other dimension and they seek help from a group of paranormal investigators for help.
The ideas this film borrowed from the 1982 haunted house film "Poltergeist" are obvious. I will say that this movie does have some slightly creepy sequences, but it is sometimes very, very boring. The acting here is nothing special, the mood is alright, the score (which was mostly this dramatic Irish opera music) was somewhat annoying, and the CGI special effects are really horrible. I mean, it was 1996, you would think they could have done a little better than they did. The ending where the house was on fire was the poorest special effect I've seen, very very cheap. But hey, this was a cheap movie.
Also, the translucent monster wolf thing that their daughter sees looks horribly fake. And what was it's significance in the film anyway? What the heck does a wolf-monster have to do with a haunted house? The special effects in here are what really ruined this movie. The acting was pretty bad too. I usually enjoy many low budget horror films, but not this one. "House of the Damned" is nothing special at all, only consider watching it if you have nothing better to do. But you'll probably want to pass on it. 4/10.
The ideas this film borrowed from the 1982 haunted house film "Poltergeist" are obvious. I will say that this movie does have some slightly creepy sequences, but it is sometimes very, very boring. The acting here is nothing special, the mood is alright, the score (which was mostly this dramatic Irish opera music) was somewhat annoying, and the CGI special effects are really horrible. I mean, it was 1996, you would think they could have done a little better than they did. The ending where the house was on fire was the poorest special effect I've seen, very very cheap. But hey, this was a cheap movie.
Also, the translucent monster wolf thing that their daughter sees looks horribly fake. And what was it's significance in the film anyway? What the heck does a wolf-monster have to do with a haunted house? The special effects in here are what really ruined this movie. The acting was pretty bad too. I usually enjoy many low budget horror films, but not this one. "House of the Damned" is nothing special at all, only consider watching it if you have nothing better to do. But you'll probably want to pass on it. 4/10.
Proof that movies worse than Roger Corman's still get made!
oldwilli1 January 2005
New Year's Day. The day after consuming a few too many vodka martinis and Cosmopolitans mixed with a bunch of bubbly at midnight, my wife and I discovered the local cable company is offering up the digital specialty channels for free for the month of January. We had a choice - do we make use of the freebie channels or do we start watching the eight seasons of X-Files on DVD that we received from our daughter for Christmas?
We elected for the digital freebie since the DVDs are going nowhere and we need something like ten twelve-hour days to watch all the X-Files beginning to end. The Drive-In channel was offering a horror classic three movie marathon: Asylum (1972), House of the Damned (1996) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961). Asylum is well-reviewed here and the Pit and the Pendulum was on too late for us to watch which meant we could really only be properly critical for House of the Damned.
To be honest, we tried to be serious about the movie since its stars have reasonably good acting credentials - Greg Evigan (William Shatner's over-written Tekwars) and Alexandra Paul (the only Baywatch babe who could act although she has the body of a ten-year-old boy). Unfortunately, we soon dissolved to giggles, under the influence of a little hair-of-the-dog, as we each shouted out the names of movies from which this dog borrowed its scenes: Poltergeist, The Shining, Hell House, House On Haunted Hill, Ghost Busters!
The acting, especially by Evigan's real-life daughter, wasn't too bad considering the silly script they had to work with. The CGI, for 1996, was hilarious - at its worst point in the final scene when it should have been the most horrific it was so bad my wife and I dissolved in laughter.
Overall: Acting 4/5, Script 2/5, SFX 0/5
We elected for the digital freebie since the DVDs are going nowhere and we need something like ten twelve-hour days to watch all the X-Files beginning to end. The Drive-In channel was offering a horror classic three movie marathon: Asylum (1972), House of the Damned (1996) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961). Asylum is well-reviewed here and the Pit and the Pendulum was on too late for us to watch which meant we could really only be properly critical for House of the Damned.
To be honest, we tried to be serious about the movie since its stars have reasonably good acting credentials - Greg Evigan (William Shatner's over-written Tekwars) and Alexandra Paul (the only Baywatch babe who could act although she has the body of a ten-year-old boy). Unfortunately, we soon dissolved to giggles, under the influence of a little hair-of-the-dog, as we each shouted out the names of movies from which this dog borrowed its scenes: Poltergeist, The Shining, Hell House, House On Haunted Hill, Ghost Busters!
The acting, especially by Evigan's real-life daughter, wasn't too bad considering the silly script they had to work with. The CGI, for 1996, was hilarious - at its worst point in the final scene when it should have been the most horrific it was so bad my wife and I dissolved in laughter.
Overall: Acting 4/5, Script 2/5, SFX 0/5
A wasted opportunity
mjshannon17 October 2000
This was a letdown in many ways. The location filming in Ireland, though quite beautiful at times, cannot save this uninspired flick. Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul, as the married couple trying to get their marriage back on track and who inherit a haunted mansion, just aren't interesting characters. Paul, towards the end of the film, becomes incredibly annoying and one wishes she would just close her mouth and shut up, as it seems she is screaming as if it has just become an Olympic event! Other problems with this film are odd segments that have nothing to do with the core of the film, such as the opening sequence with two cleaning women and the woman in a bed with a severed hand climbing over her writhing, naked body. Although the woman is quite adequate doing this it does nothing storywise. One is left thinking the production team needed to pad out a short running time and just tossed in some padding and a bit of T and A. The CGI effects are cartoonish as well and the fiery finale rivals co-executive producer Roger Corman's much earlier and far superior film The Fall Of The House Of Usher in all its ineffective cheapness. Any attempt at true tension and suspense, and as a result chills, are thrown out the window in this low budget bust. If you like images of Ireland you might find something here but you would do better renting or buying a travelogue. Skip this unless you are undiscriminating and think plot is secondary. Rent another low budget ghost story(if you can find it) titled The Woman In Black and see how good and scary a movie can be. This was a wasted opportunity.
not worth even my time!
eileenmchenry14 March 2005
This movie is a clumsy mishmash of various ghost-story and suspense-thriller conventions, none of them fully realized and all of them rather irritating. The script was perfunctory. The acting, ditto. The scary FX were mostly laughable except for one exquisite seat-jumper moment that scared me even though I saw it coming a mile off. Now, explain to me someone why you would need ghosts, AND black magic, AND arcane ritual objects, AND Count Crapula CG boogeymen, AND psychic investigators, AND family curses, AND Irish superstitions, AND bowls of milk left out for the supernatural beings, AND possessed dollies, all in the same movie? With all that you would expect more than one good moment of horror, but this movie is lame, lame, lame.
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, Roger Corman style.
capkronos25 February 2004
Strange things happen to Americans Will (Greg Evigan), Maura (Alexandra Paul) and their young daughter Aubrey (Briana Evigan, Greg's real life daughter) when they move into a large, newly inherited house in Ireland. Crusty corpses are found in the cellar, a turkey squirts blood, furniture moves and the ghosts of a dead child and a cackling old lady show up to scare the little girl. Paranormal investigators are eventually called in to banish the evil spirits, but Maura becomes possessed anyway and chases everyone around with a meat cleaver.
This film is full of cliches, but there's a standout performance from Alexandra Paul... too bad it doesn't belong in this movie (nor any other I can think of off hand)! She can barely keep a straight face and her over-emoting and hysterical screaming tantrums are a joy to behold. In any case, she's a lot more interesting to watch than anything else in this movie.
Score: 3 out of 10
This film is full of cliches, but there's a standout performance from Alexandra Paul... too bad it doesn't belong in this movie (nor any other I can think of off hand)! She can barely keep a straight face and her over-emoting and hysterical screaming tantrums are a joy to behold. In any case, she's a lot more interesting to watch than anything else in this movie.
Score: 3 out of 10
Bad film,it might for direct to tv
SUPERNOVA HEIGHTS9 August 2001
I saw this Film one midnight and I can say that it worse than other horror film about a Haunted House.Alexandra Paul is not one of the best actress but she can do the role better,The little girl get worse this is a example about a Bad actress,she has not got future in the great world of films. SENTENCE FOR HOUSE OF THE DAMNED:BAD
So bad it's good!
Leofwine_draca8 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This is an absolutely hilarious attempt at a scary, haunted house flick in the same vein as THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and POLTERGEIST. Although it is frequently bad, the best thing you can say about this film is that it is never boring - indeed, I found it to be very watchable and unintentionally amusing. This film differentiates itself from the rest by being set in Ireland, although all the old clichés are still present, as I'm sure you'll be glad to hear. From the opening there are some nice scenes of a barren and deserted Ireland, full of ruined walls and wide empty expanses of countryside. Along with the over-the-top score (which throws in some Gregorian chanting to desperately try and be scary - it doesn't work, incidentally) these are probably the eeriest scenes in the entire film. Sadly it all goes downhill from there.
Being an American film, the three main stars of this film are, as you would have guessed, American. I guess a film about three Irish people being haunted just wouldn't have appealed to an American audience - or so the producers so narrow-mindedly thought, anyway. Greg Evigan is the likable, mild-mannered father of the family who does lots of heroic and manly things throughout the film's course. His wife is played by "TV movie queen" Alexandra Paul, who once again I found to be supremely irritating here. Especially when she's supposed to be scary once she becomes possessed, but just looks unconvincing and stupid. The daughter is played by Briana Evigan (there's nepotism for you) and is also pretty annoying, as a fair few child actresses are. The supporting cast of Irish actors and actresses are infinitely more interesting than the main stars of the film.
I like the way this film has three separate segments. Firstly comes the "haunting" part of the film, where lots of unconnected events occur in the house to scare the inhabitants. Secondly comes the "child in danger" aspect, which totally rips off POLTERGEIST and sees the little girl mysteriously getting kidnapped by the ghosts - and having to be rescued through an ancient ritual. The third part of the film moves into possession territory as Paul suddenly goes mad and starts wielding a handy meat-cleaver at her husband and daughter. After she's cured (what, like you couldn't guess?) the film reverts to the classic "haunting" aspect again and the house is destroyed, burning down in a old-fashioned style of which Roger Corman would be proud.
I found this film to have the edge on other low-budget productions of the '90s by the sheer wealth of supernatural stuff that goes on in it, as opposed to the one or two events we see in things like BURIED SECRETS. As far as I can remember, the film includes the following: blood running down walls and filling containers; an external priest dying as a result of the evil; a creepy talking doll; the ghost of a murdered girl; a clairvoyant seeing a vision of evil; a walled-up corpse in the cellar; an evil statue which is implied to come to life; a decapitation; a magic ritual; a walking severed hand; an amulet; the apparition of an old witch; demonic possession; levitating objects like scissors, knives, etc.; an invisible monster; a glowing tornado in the cellar (!!!); cupboards opening and stuff being moved around; rats and messed-up video and computer signals. There's more which I can't remember. Some of the more extreme effects are rendered by some cartoonish CGI effects which are also very funny.
It seems that after all this stuff had happened (the film is packed with almost constant action), there was STILL time to be padded out. Thus we get a tacked on opening sequence in which two cleaners are disturbed by the house and one is blown up in an unexplained exploding car. This is never referred to in the rest of the film. They also inserted a couple of cheesy sex scenes to make the film more scintillating to male viewers, I guess. ESCAPE TO NOWHERE (the original title HOUSE OF THE DAMNED was much better) is a bad film, yes, but it's a hoot to watch!
Being an American film, the three main stars of this film are, as you would have guessed, American. I guess a film about three Irish people being haunted just wouldn't have appealed to an American audience - or so the producers so narrow-mindedly thought, anyway. Greg Evigan is the likable, mild-mannered father of the family who does lots of heroic and manly things throughout the film's course. His wife is played by "TV movie queen" Alexandra Paul, who once again I found to be supremely irritating here. Especially when she's supposed to be scary once she becomes possessed, but just looks unconvincing and stupid. The daughter is played by Briana Evigan (there's nepotism for you) and is also pretty annoying, as a fair few child actresses are. The supporting cast of Irish actors and actresses are infinitely more interesting than the main stars of the film.
I like the way this film has three separate segments. Firstly comes the "haunting" part of the film, where lots of unconnected events occur in the house to scare the inhabitants. Secondly comes the "child in danger" aspect, which totally rips off POLTERGEIST and sees the little girl mysteriously getting kidnapped by the ghosts - and having to be rescued through an ancient ritual. The third part of the film moves into possession territory as Paul suddenly goes mad and starts wielding a handy meat-cleaver at her husband and daughter. After she's cured (what, like you couldn't guess?) the film reverts to the classic "haunting" aspect again and the house is destroyed, burning down in a old-fashioned style of which Roger Corman would be proud.
I found this film to have the edge on other low-budget productions of the '90s by the sheer wealth of supernatural stuff that goes on in it, as opposed to the one or two events we see in things like BURIED SECRETS. As far as I can remember, the film includes the following: blood running down walls and filling containers; an external priest dying as a result of the evil; a creepy talking doll; the ghost of a murdered girl; a clairvoyant seeing a vision of evil; a walled-up corpse in the cellar; an evil statue which is implied to come to life; a decapitation; a magic ritual; a walking severed hand; an amulet; the apparition of an old witch; demonic possession; levitating objects like scissors, knives, etc.; an invisible monster; a glowing tornado in the cellar (!!!); cupboards opening and stuff being moved around; rats and messed-up video and computer signals. There's more which I can't remember. Some of the more extreme effects are rendered by some cartoonish CGI effects which are also very funny.
It seems that after all this stuff had happened (the film is packed with almost constant action), there was STILL time to be padded out. Thus we get a tacked on opening sequence in which two cleaners are disturbed by the house and one is blown up in an unexplained exploding car. This is never referred to in the rest of the film. They also inserted a couple of cheesy sex scenes to make the film more scintillating to male viewers, I guess. ESCAPE TO NOWHERE (the original title HOUSE OF THE DAMNED was much better) is a bad film, yes, but it's a hoot to watch!
Horror B le
brandonp-116 June 2005
This has got to be the worst movie I have ever seen. The part where they loose there daughter? with the poltergeist overtone rip off? just pushes it over the edge with stupidity. I watched it on showtime so it still had the cheese soft-core porn scenes in it. I have to say it made me laugh my ass off. The 80's 3d effects were very out of place. Included an invisible cat and a spinning vortex. Wow I wonder if the people who made this actually feel accomplished in life. The actress who plays the wife looks familiar but sucks anyhow. Her screaming could be used as a torture device in hell for more than retired Nazis. Anyways thank you showtime for the super crappy horror movie. I will always enjoy the time I watched the biggest waist of time and money I have ever seen.
An Entertaining Haunted House Movie.
movies2u15 July 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Spectre (1996) AKA House Of The Damned
Rating: 3 out of 5
***Contains Spoilers***: Spectre (aka House Of The Damned) starts off with a prologue that hardly relates to the main characters of the movie, but was somewhat spooky. Two maids are sent to clean Glen Abbey Manor and encounter some creepy occurrences, and let's just say that one maid doesn't make it out alive. The movie then starts with Will and Maura South, a seemingly happy couple with marital problems, with a daughter named Aubrey. Maura inherits the mansion and the family moves in. (Just to say, that the problem with haunted house movies is that the people can always leave, unless for these reasons: 1. They are trapped in the house, 2. The people aren't superstitious and don't pay attention to occurrences, 3. There are payed or rewarded for staying there.) In this case, they don't leave because of #2 on the list: they don't become very superstitous. That is, until their daughter is kidnapped by angry spirits. The family then finds the body a young girl named Colleen Laundrigan in their cellar. This movie had some chilling sequences, but the CGI effects were terrible, especially on the wolf thingy that was seen two or three times througout the movie, and the ending where the house is on fire looked cheesey, I mean it was 1997, you'd think that they could have had better effects unless it was a budgeted production. All in all, it's worth watching on a dark, stormy night.
Rating: 3 out of 5
***Contains Spoilers***: Spectre (aka House Of The Damned) starts off with a prologue that hardly relates to the main characters of the movie, but was somewhat spooky. Two maids are sent to clean Glen Abbey Manor and encounter some creepy occurrences, and let's just say that one maid doesn't make it out alive. The movie then starts with Will and Maura South, a seemingly happy couple with marital problems, with a daughter named Aubrey. Maura inherits the mansion and the family moves in. (Just to say, that the problem with haunted house movies is that the people can always leave, unless for these reasons: 1. They are trapped in the house, 2. The people aren't superstitious and don't pay attention to occurrences, 3. There are payed or rewarded for staying there.) In this case, they don't leave because of #2 on the list: they don't become very superstitous. That is, until their daughter is kidnapped by angry spirits. The family then finds the body a young girl named Colleen Laundrigan in their cellar. This movie had some chilling sequences, but the CGI effects were terrible, especially on the wolf thingy that was seen two or three times througout the movie, and the ending where the house is on fire looked cheesey, I mean it was 1997, you'd think that they could have had better effects unless it was a budgeted production. All in all, it's worth watching on a dark, stormy night.
Desperate Actors Do Desperate Things...Like This Movie!
RPullen19 December 2002
I watched this thing of a movie last night (18 Dec '02) while flicking through the channels I got to channel "5" and the opening titles had just begun with the nice landscapes but shoddy pan shots. But as there was nothing else on I decided to give it ago.
For some reason as the movie got increasingly flawed and to be quite honest annoying. I still watched the whole damn thing!
I guess it had it's moments for like an F-Movie! But I like realism in film and this was just not realistic even for a supernatural film. You don't need a huge budget to make truely eerie movies...SO NO EXCUSES! Sometimes I wonder what the actors...Or there agents were thinking!
Surely the weirdest thing to be based in Ireland!!! It's the sort of film when you expect Warwick Davis to turn up chanting "I'm the Leprechaun!" Oh c'mon! What was that invisible cat thingy for!
anyway....NOT MY THING
1.5/10
For some reason as the movie got increasingly flawed and to be quite honest annoying. I still watched the whole damn thing!
I guess it had it's moments for like an F-Movie! But I like realism in film and this was just not realistic even for a supernatural film. You don't need a huge budget to make truely eerie movies...SO NO EXCUSES! Sometimes I wonder what the actors...Or there agents were thinking!
Surely the weirdest thing to be based in Ireland!!! It's the sort of film when you expect Warwick Davis to turn up chanting "I'm the Leprechaun!" Oh c'mon! What was that invisible cat thingy for!
anyway....NOT MY THING
1.5/10
Wasted potential.
dimadick30 October 2001
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This movie is about a Haunted House.Not truly original but they get that part right.But what about the characters,the continuity and the motivation? Will South,the star is truly not interesting at all.The only information we get about him is that he used to have affairs.That is impressive,if you are totaly unaware of society.Maura South,the owner of this fine house becomes interesting only when she becomes possesed.She is way too jealous,her husband treating another woman politely is hardly evidence they have an affair,and comes out too shallow.The daughter,Aubrey South,is just annoying.she is a ten year-old.A doll chating to her should impress her.Ten-year olds are usualy smarter than that.Nothing that happens around her seems to effect her.Is she retarded?Father Seamus seems to have studied the occult for some time but he still believes in uncontinional love.Romantic but it has nothing to do with real life or any kind of religion/mythologie. Now some details that kept me interested but where never explained.The house was built on 1863.The couple who built it burried their daughter,Colleen,alive in the celar.They perfomed black magic.The husband's hands were cut off on 1882 by an angry mob and he died during the same year.His wife suicided on 1883.Her husband put a curse in his house.One of his hands struggled a woman in the house.The family maintained ownership of the house till 1996.The house was haunted by Colleen and a number of unnamed others.If those details was explained properly it could have been a nice movie.Why did they have to burrie their own daughter?When did they do that?Why did the man placed a curse in his own house and not in his enemies.How could his wife survive him by a year if the mob was against both of them?Who was the struggled woman?The family continued to live there for a 113 years but the house goes nuts when Maura South arrives.Why?What is Colleen's part in all this? And by the way that they perfomed black magic hardly tells us anything about them and their motivation.So many plot holes ruin this movie.
Disrespectre
NoDakTatum21 October 2023
You have seen it all before and you will see it all again in this cheap little horror flick. Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul are Will and Maura South, who move to Ireland to inherit an old home left to them by a relative of Maura's. They bring their cute daughter Aubrey (Briana Evigan), and move in right away, not aware that two maids hired to clean the place have already died there. Aubrey finds a creepy doll that talks to her, computers and lights do not work properly, and someone messes up Maura's linen closet. We find out Will and Maura have a strained marriage due to Will's past infidelity, and store that away since it will obviously play a part in the story later. The house is blessed by Father Seamus (Eamon Draper), but the couple go to village mystic Shea (Dick Donaghue) and his lovely assistant Amy (Mary Kate Ryan) when things begin scaring them. Shea determines the spirit haunting the house is that of a dead girl named Colleen, whose body is found walled up in the cellar, murdered by her mother. End of movie, roll credits...no, wait! Just a false ending forty minutes in! Colleen is laid to rest, and the family moves on, admiring the mysterious amulet Will happened to find on the same wall they tore down to get to Colleen's body. For closure, the Souths invite Shea, Amy, and Father Seamus over for dinner, where the house lets them know it is not through yet.
Off the top of my bald head, I was reminded of "The Amityville Horror" (at one point the walls bleed), a huge dose of "Poltergeist," and the musical score sounds like it was lifted directly from "The Omen." There are so many borrowed elements from other horror films, "Spectre" cannot be accused of being original. Among the pluses are the film's authentic Irish locations. Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul have a nice chemistry. The makeup and gore effects are top notch. Little Briana Evigan must scream a lot, but her character never becomes too annoying or cute. Levy does a good job of directing, throwing in a few sex scenes that sure didn't happen in "Poltergeist." On the other hand, the computer generated transparent demon had me in stitches. There are a couple of whirlwinds of light that are also badly rendered. The two (!) false endings are especially noticeable in a film that runs eighty three minutes. Throw all the negatives in with the fact that this story has been done to death, and "Spectre" is a failure.
Off the top of my bald head, I was reminded of "The Amityville Horror" (at one point the walls bleed), a huge dose of "Poltergeist," and the musical score sounds like it was lifted directly from "The Omen." There are so many borrowed elements from other horror films, "Spectre" cannot be accused of being original. Among the pluses are the film's authentic Irish locations. Greg Evigan and Alexandra Paul have a nice chemistry. The makeup and gore effects are top notch. Little Briana Evigan must scream a lot, but her character never becomes too annoying or cute. Levy does a good job of directing, throwing in a few sex scenes that sure didn't happen in "Poltergeist." On the other hand, the computer generated transparent demon had me in stitches. There are a couple of whirlwinds of light that are also badly rendered. The two (!) false endings are especially noticeable in a film that runs eighty three minutes. Throw all the negatives in with the fact that this story has been done to death, and "Spectre" is a failure.
Comically Bad
peterDM-3038020 October 2021
I never thought of Alexandra Paul as a bad actor, but oh boy, she should have won a Razzie for this hot mess of a performance. From her over the top reactions to absolutely everything to her possessed makeup and demonesque performance where she grunts like a drunk cave man, she is all over the place. The special effects look like they were made by Nintendo 64.
Upcoming star in 2020
keithmcpartland4 January 2021
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
