The Houses of Doom: Tick Tock

 I recently discovered a quartet of Italian made for TV horror movies called The Houses of Doom. These movies were commissioned by TV network Reteitalia which was run by Silvio Berlusconi before he got into politics.

The idea seems to have been to create a series of horror movies with a unifying theme in the vein of The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt, but obviously longer. They quickly realized that this wouldn't work even for Italian TV due to the graphic blood and gore. The solution was to make them as regular movies and sell them that way instead.

Yesterday (as of writing this) I watched The House of Clocks (1989) by Italian Horror maestro Lucio Fulci. I'll be as spoiler free as possible.

The titular house is the home of a strange elderly couple with a crazy amount of clocks as well as some seriously weird skeletons in their closet. Or corpses in the basement to be precise. Along comes three ne'er-do-wells, two men and a woman. They drive a stolen car, smoke copious amounts of weed and steal to support themselves. They have heard of this isolated mansion and intend to rob it.

I feel I should add a trigger warning here: There is a scene where a cat is stuffed in a plastic bag and suffocated. This scene was actually difficult to watch due to it's realistic effects. Obviously no real cat was harmed but it disturbed me considerably more than anything else the movie has to offer.

The trio breaks in, things go incredibly wrong and then the supernatural stuff starts happening. Okay, minor spoiler: The titular clocks can turn back time but either because of some cuts or due to mistakes made, the plot has some weird holes vis-a-vis the reversed time. I'm mentioning it because the movie was a bit hard to follow at times. I advice to just roll with it.

With the time twists in effect it becomes a struggle for survival that ends in a, I wouldn't say twist, but somewhat deus-ex-machina ending.

So what did I think? First off, this is undoubtedly Italian horror. The scenery, the dubbed dialog etc. I may have seen a slightly cut version, as there are a couple of minor elements that I didn't see that Wikipedia claims are in the movie, but it was bloody enough and nothing major was left unexplained. There are a few really good shots that are both creepy and wonderful, so it absolutely feels like a Fulci movie, but more in the way of Fulci-lite. After all it was made for TV and shot in only four weeks. It shows but not so much as to be a problem.

Plot wise, this was an interesting variation of elements we have seen in many other movies. The sinister house, the intruders, the robbery gone wrong etc. It's not a question of reinventing the wheel but it is a very nice wheel nonetheless. What was odd is that there is actually no good guy here. There is no one to root for as everyone is awful in some way, which is either wonderful or annoying depending on how you feel about it.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised. I recommend it to all lovers of Italian horror and older horror in general. I had a good time and I'm looking forward to watching the other three movies in this series.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!