Bloodbath at the House of Death
Encyclopedia
Bloodbath at the House of Death is a 1983 comedy
horror film
starring the British
comedian
Kenny Everett
and featuring Vincent Price
. It is an over-the-top spoof loosely inspired by The Amityville Horror
and other horror films from the same period.
ic monk
s enter the house and kill 18 of its occupants.
In 1983, Doctor Lucas Mandeville (Kenny Everett
) and Doctor Barbara Coyle (Pamela Stephenson
) are sent to investigate radioactive
readings in the area that have been traced to Headstone Manor, now known by locals as the House of Death.
Along with several other scientists, Mandeville and Coyle set up their equipment in the house, while the Sinister Man (Vincent Price
), a 700-year-old Satanic
priest, prepares a rite in the nearby woods to purge the house of its unwanted guests.
During this time, Mandeville reveals that he was once a successful German
surgeon
named Ludwig Manheim, who was reduced to "smart-arse paranormal
research crap" after a humiliation in the past. Coyle also encounters a poltergeist
, and the two engage in sexual intercourse
.
Several satanic clones of Mandeville, Coyle and the other scientists enter house, and begin killing off the originals and taking their place. When Coyle is about to be killed, she is rescued by the poltergeist and saved. The satanic monks then take off in a spaceship, revealing that these monks are aliens using the house for their activities on Earth. The film ends with the spaceship soaring into the skies, with an E.T.
voice groaning: "Oh, shit! Not again!".
in Hertfordshire
, England
. Michael McIntyre
reveals in his autobiography that he was the voice of E.T.
Myers recalls that the film did not make sense; he screened the film for censor James Ferman, who enjoyed the film, but believed that the reels were played in the wrong order.
by Thorn EMI
. It was produced in the aftermath of Kenny Everett's outburst at the Young Conservatives conference in which he called for the bombing of Russia; as a result, the media frequently referenced the film in negative context in relation to the outburst during the production, and film critics reviewed the film harshly. Film critic Martyn Auty wrote: "Presumably intended as high camp; looks like low-grade Carry On
." It was given an 18 certificate
in the United Kingdom.
The film was released on DVD
in the United Kingdom in July 2008, with a re-rating to a 15 certificate
.
A novelization of the film was also published, which named Marcel Wave (one of Kenny Everett's TV characters) as the resident who underwent spontaneous combustion
.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
starring the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
and featuring Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
. It is an over-the-top spoof loosely inspired by The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror (1979 film)
The Amityville Horror is a 1979 American horror film based on the bestselling 1977 novel of the same name by Jay Anson. It is the first movie in the Amityville Horror franchise....
and other horror films from the same period.
Plot
The film opens in 1975 at a place called Headstone Manor, which is being used as a "businessman's weekend retreat and girls' summer camp". A few minutes into the film, a group of satanSatan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
ic monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s enter the house and kill 18 of its occupants.
In 1983, Doctor Lucas Mandeville (Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
) and Doctor Barbara Coyle (Pamela Stephenson
Pamela Stephenson
Pamela Helen Stephenson Connolly is a New Zealand-born Australian clinical psychologist and writer now resident in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her work as an actress and comedian during the 1980s...
) are sent to investigate radioactive
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...
readings in the area that have been traced to Headstone Manor, now known by locals as the House of Death.
Along with several other scientists, Mandeville and Coyle set up their equipment in the house, while the Sinister Man (Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
), a 700-year-old Satanic
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
priest, prepares a rite in the nearby woods to purge the house of its unwanted guests.
During this time, Mandeville reveals that he was once a successful German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
named Ludwig Manheim, who was reduced to "smart-arse paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
research crap" after a humiliation in the past. Coyle also encounters a poltergeist
Poltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
, and the two engage in sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
.
Several satanic clones of Mandeville, Coyle and the other scientists enter house, and begin killing off the originals and taking their place. When Coyle is about to be killed, she is rescued by the poltergeist and saved. The satanic monks then take off in a spaceship, revealing that these monks are aliens using the house for their activities on Earth. The film ends with the spaceship soaring into the skies, with an E.T.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
voice groaning: "Oh, shit! Not again!".
Cast
- Kenny EverettKenny EverettKenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
as Dr. Lukas Mandeville - Pamela StephensonPamela StephensonPamela Helen Stephenson Connolly is a New Zealand-born Australian clinical psychologist and writer now resident in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her work as an actress and comedian during the 1980s...
as Dr. Barbara Coyle - Vincent PriceVincent PriceVincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
as Sinister Man - Gareth HuntGareth HuntAlan Leonard Hunt was an English actor, known as Gareth Hunt, best remembered for playing the footman Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers.-Early life:...
as Elliot Broome - Don WarringtonDon WarringtonDon Warrington, MBE is a Trinidadian British actor.-Personal life:Warrington was born in Trinidad and Tobago on 23 May 1951 and brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne, England from age five. His father was the Trinidadian politician, Basil Kydd, who died in 1958. He has two sons.His acting career...
as Stephen Wilson - John FortuneJohn FortuneJohn Fortune is a British satirist, comedian writer and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John...
as John Harrison - Sheila SteafelSheila SteafelSheila Steafel is a South African-born actress who has lived all her adult life in the United Kingdom.Steafel, who was born in Johannesburg, appeared in many classic television series, including: The Frost Report, Z-Cars, Sykes, The Kenny Everett Television Show, Minder, The Ghosts of Motley Hall,...
as Sheila Finch - John Stephen Hill as Henry Noland
- Cleo RocosCleo RocosCleo Rocos is a UK-based comedy actress and television/theatre producer and presenter, best known for appearing on The Kenny Everett Television Show. She is of Greek and English descent...
as Deborah Kedding - Graham StarkGraham StarkGraham Stark is an English comedian, actor, writer and director.Stark was born in Wallasey on the Wirral in Cheshire, England. He first came to prominence on BBC Radio, making his debut in Happy Go Lucky and going on to Ray's A Laugh, Educating Archie and substitute on The Goon Show...
as The Blind Man - Pat Ashton as Barmaid
- David LodgeDavid Lodge (actor)David William Frederick Lodge was a British character actor.Before turning to acting he worked as a circus clown...
as Inspector Goule - Davilia David as Sheila's Mother
- Debbie LindenDebbie LindenDebbie Linden was a British glamour model and actress best known for her role as Old Mr. Grace's secretary in the sitcom Are You Being Served?...
as Attractive girl - Tim Barrett as Doctor
Production
Laurence Myers agreed to produce the film when the makers almost lost their financing. The film was shot entirely on location at Potters BarPotters Bar
Potters Bar is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire, England, located north of Central London. In 2001 it had a population of 21,618....
in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Michael McIntyre
Michael McIntyre
Michael Hazen James McIntyre is an English stand-up comedian. He is well known for appearing at many British stand-up comedy events and for several roles on television stand-up programmes such as Live at the Apollo and his own show, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow...
reveals in his autobiography that he was the voice of E.T.
Myers recalls that the film did not make sense; he screened the film for censor James Ferman, who enjoyed the film, but believed that the reels were played in the wrong order.
Release
The film was released in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created in October 1979 when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but it demerged again in...
. It was produced in the aftermath of Kenny Everett's outburst at the Young Conservatives conference in which he called for the bombing of Russia; as a result, the media frequently referenced the film in negative context in relation to the outburst during the production, and film critics reviewed the film harshly. Film critic Martyn Auty wrote: "Presumably intended as high camp; looks like low-grade Carry On
Carry On films
The Carry On films are a series of low-budget British comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. They are an energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres....
." It was given an 18 certificate
18 certificate
The 18 certificate is issued by the British Board of Film Classification to state that, in its opinion, a film, video recording, or game should not be seen or purchased by a person under 18 years old....
in the United Kingdom.
The film was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the United Kingdom in July 2008, with a re-rating to a 15 certificate
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
.
A novelization of the film was also published, which named Marcel Wave (one of Kenny Everett's TV characters) as the resident who underwent spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion is the self-ignition of a mass, for example, a pile of oily rags. Allegedly, humans can also ignite and burn without an obvious cause; this phenomenon is known as spontaneous human combustion....
.
External links
- Review at Britmovie.co.uk
- Channel 4 review of the film
- The films that were buried alive, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, August 22, 2008