House 3 : The Horror Show

Alternate titles : The Horror Show, House 3.

Tagline : "First they killed him, then he really got mad."

Totally different in style from the previous films, ditching the humour and going for the straight horror approach. Lance Henricksen takes the lead role this time, as Detective Lucas MacCarthy. A tough police officer who single headedly apprehended vicious serial killer "Meat Cleaver" Max Jenke (played by character actor Brion James).

Jenke, who is reported to have murdered over 100 people, is sent to the electric chair for his crimes. But following the execution, Detective MacCarthy finds himself troubled by constant hallucinations and nightmares of him threatening to get back at him from beyond the grave.

At first he thinks nothing of it, believing it to be post traumatic stress. But as the visions continue to get worse, and after the fact the body of his daughters boyfriend is discovered in the basement of his house, it soon becomes apparent that old Meat Clever Max is indeed still around somehow, and is now after revenge on MacCarthy and his family.

Heavily borrowing from (IE, probably ripped off) Wes Craven's "Shocker", which was made in the same year. When viewed as a sequel to the previous "House" films, it is rather disappointing, lacking the wry humour of it's predecessors. But on it's own merits, it's actually quite an entertaining low budget horror pic, and is certainly worth watching. Even if just for Lance Henricksen and Brion James's performances.

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines... "House 1 was weird, House 2 was spooky, House 3 is scary as hell", "Hand over your soul", "You'll wish you were back on Elm Street".
• Although produced by the same team responsible for the previous "House" films, this was not actually intended as being part of the series, which is why it was released in the US as simply "The Horror Show". However, the European distributers wanted to cash in on the popularity of the previous films, so they retitled this as "House 3 : The Horror Show", which forced producer Sean Cunningham to release his proposed third film as "House 4".
• David Blythe, who previously directed "Death Warmed Up", was originally given the directors job, but was replaced after only a couple of days filming by James Isaacs.
• Rita Taggart, who played Donna McCarthy, was not a fan of horror films. But accepted the role as she wanted to work with Lance Henricksen.
• Director James Isaac went on to work with Producer Sean Cunningham again to direct "Jason X". The 10th "Friday the 13th" film.
• Character actor Brion James, who played Meat Cleaver Max Jenke, claimed that this was his favourite role that he'd played.
• The US release, entitled "The Horror Show" was heavily cut for an R rating, which removed virtually all the gore. The UK release was of the directors uncut version, though this still missed out a nightmare scene where Lance Henricksen's character removes his heart from an opening in his chest. The original UK video by 'Braveworld' and DVD by 'Hollywood DVD' were uncut, however the disc contained in the 2004 Anchor Bay box set was of the cut US version. 'Arrow' later released the uncut version onto UK Blu-Ray, although the US release from Shout Factory was the cut US R rated version.

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