What the hell is this movie about?:

As I mentioned, this is one of those 70’s spooky “Satan possesses something” movies, which in this case happens to be a house, as opposed to pre-pubescent children, uh.. demonic toddlers, or grandmothers. I guess the point I'm driving at is that this movie tries to be unique by having Satan possess an object, as opposed to a person. Which makes one wonder why a house? If I were the lord of evil, I would have at least possessed an inadimate object that was at fun, like a weedwacker or a moving truck full of fertilizer driven by an insane man from Montana.

Anyway, the house instructs a member of the original family living in the house to kill the rest of them. How does the house tell him to do that? I don't really know, and while they don't show that, I suppose having the man of the house sit down for tea with Satan and discussing the contractual obligations in which for ownership of one (1) demonically possessed house requires the owner (hetherto refered to as "The Dupe") to murder his family (hetherto refered to as "The Virgin Sacrifice" except for in terms of the mother who is hitherto refered to as "My regular Saturday night thing") would be kind of silly wouldn't it? Anyway, he blows their brains out (And judging from the lack of blood, skull fragments and brains, leaves me to believe that his family originates from an ancient race of fucking shitty special effects artists who can't properly create the effect of a shot gun blowing peoples fucking heads open I'm not exactly a special effects wizard or anything, but if you were really that hard up, a wig, a firecracker and a mellon filled with red paint would have worked just nicely!)

Some months later after the mess is cleaned up, the house is sold to the Lutz family who moves in spite of the fact that people were murdered in it, little knowing that it is haunted by forces beyond their feeble middle-America-Christian-Values can ever comprehend!

Oh boy, are we sure in for a fun movie-going-experience! A catholic family who wants to have a priest bless their house and have a nun for a relative! That's just great! Look, I know that film goers were looking for a terrifying film experience, but I don't think this is what people had in mind.

So when the family is all moved in and nice an cozy, they start to realize that there are some strange goings on in their house. I don’t know about you people reading this, but I think a sure fire sign that your house is fucked is the fact that whoever designed it made it look like a big skull. You know, that just rings out that perhaps the architect was a wee bit on the fucked side. I mean how can you possibly miss that?

Hello? ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION!? LOOK AT THAT FUCKING HOUSE:

GRRRR!!! I'm spooky!!

How the fuck can you miss that? I mean, it's printed (or rather constructed) right on the side of the damn thing! What the fuck does their summer cottage look like? A mangled impaled corpse? An eyeball with a long trailing optical nerve? Does their church look like an aborted fetus? Jesus Christ these people are pretty oblivious of things! And if the fact that they miss the fact that their house looks like a big giant skull, then the rest of the movie will reaffirm that beliefe in the viewer, because I tell you, these people are pretty fucking ignorant to their surroundings (But hey, when you're a devoit Catholic, I suppose ignorance is kind of your stalk and trade, so maybe it's not such a big surprise after all.)

So let’s see what sort of stuff happens? Well, this priest comes to bless the house and the house traps him in a room and fills it flies and tells him to get out and makes him violently ill. Although, I'm thinking the idea of the house making him sick is highly suspect, it's in my narrow minded opinion that most priests (especially old dinosaurs like this fuck) are either alcoholics who perfer their communion wine in Big Gulp cups or they like the fresh stains of rectal blood and fecies of an unsuspecting god-fearing choir boy. The house then prevents the good father from warning the family that their house is possessed from some great evil by screwing with the phone connection, causing the priests car to crash and various other wacky pranks.

Anyway, so the father of the family is starting to act more and more sketchy and showing a lot more attention to his axe then to his wife. But given the fact that the guy goes to bed next to a twig like Margo Kidder, I'd be getting comfortable with an axe too... But then again, why he doesn't adopt this habit living with Barbara Streisand, I may never know.

And with the cut up cast of extras, like another priest, the police chief, and a close personal psychic friend we find out that the house has a door-way to hell and it’s trying to possess dad and get him to kill everyone in the house!

You know if they made a remake of this movie (Wait a second, they did, son of a bitch!) they could have written a scene where the dad's on the phone with the psychic (See you could totally make it "with the times" so the kids could "get into it" by having the psychic friend be a phone psychic!!) and he'd be all like "Psychic friend, can you trace the origin of this demonic possession?" in which the psychic would reply "Sir, the demonic possession is coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE!" And it would have been a million times more entertaining than the stupid drivel they came up with to exposition that clunk bit of obvious of plot point.

Of course the family makes a daring escape, but of course not until daddy has to go back and save the family dog and comes face to face with the devil himself (GASP!) and it looks just like him! Great, that’s just great. Satan is James Brolin.

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