the Bel-Air at midnight

Don't Go in the House (1980, d. Joseph Ellison)

  






 Here's a movie intro written 2 weeks ago for London-based Neodrome (expertly rendered to video by founder/filmmaker, Simon Kennedy, at the bottom). I want to thank Simon, it was really his persistence that eked this out:

One summer night many moons ago, in a crowded drive-in theater on the outskirts of Detroit, a pair of impressionable young boys sat mesmerized in the backseat of their mother's AMC Pacer, gripped by a horror they'd never dare to imagine. Something terrible was happening onscreen—something unconscionable—and it would haunt their spirits for years to come.

I first saw DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE at the Bel-Air Drive-In when I was 5 years old. Raised by a young single mother who loved horror movies, my brother and I were exposed to all manner of creature feature—mom more often than not too transfixed in terror to consider that perhaps her boys were a bit young to be seeing some of this stuff.   

Okay, now about this movie...if you've seen it, you already know, but if you haven't, it remains one of the real shockers of the horror genre—from any era.

As Donnie Kohler, Dan Grimaldi gives a very persuasive, harrowing performance, both a victim and a fiend in this dark, perilous funhouse ride. Here's a guy who is just trampled by the world, one of those painfully awkward designated loners whose life is mired in day-to-day ridicule.

Dominated and abused by his mother (whom he still lives with in a large, dilapidated old house), the narrative is a tricky one because you become invested in this sad, pathetic man in a very particular way—and you get on his side—and of course once that happens, the extent of his psychosis is revealed.

Early on we witness a flashback to some very disturbing childhood trauma inflicted by his mother, who tells him he's evil and needs to be punished (and punctuates this by burning his arms over the stove, scarring him for life). When she soon dies, Donnie's already tenuous grip on reality is shattered, and a monster is set loose upon the world.

From this point on, he's tormented (and egged on) by a creepy, whispering voice as we witness his desperate, clumsy attempts to lure women back to his house—or at least into his truck. At home, he's fire-proofed a room with steel paneling—and he's bought a head-to-toe fireproof suit as well as a flamethrower—and it isn't long before we're plunged into a waking nightmare.

There was much critical vitriol and indignation inspired by Don't Go in the House, and it can be traced back to one scene, really—his first murder. It's the only instance in the movie in which director Joseph Ellison really dwells on the act (and since Donnie's burning women alive, the outrage from critics was understandable).

After torching his victims, they're dressed in his mother's clothing and assembled in a sitting room, where he occasionally visits their charred remains for a word or two (and at one point threatens to “punish them again” in a desperate bid to regain control, as they've begun popping up here and there around the house, startling him with laughter). And it's in these moments, when his blackened, rotting victims stalk and torment him, that the real horror occurs.

The influence of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is quite apparent throughout Don't Go in the House.  As in Psycho, Donnie keeps his once-domineering mother's rotting corpse at home (and still hears her bark orders from time to time). And as with Norman Bates, there's an ambivalence towards the killer as we initially pity Donnie, who warily, nervously traverses life as an outcast.

Though routinely dismissed as ugly, repellent, exploitative trash upon its release—mostly for the shocking brutality of its first murder—a more complex and compelling picture would emerge as Don't Go in the House withstood the passage of decades. Regardless of how they felt about this nasty little movie and its motives, it truly did frighten the hell out of people, and that is what still resonates after all these years. Very few horror films have endured so well after initially being so roundly condemned. Yes, it's cheap and rough around the edges, but wow is it scary.

For years afterwards, my brother and I would recall the tale of that mythic, awful thing we'd seen that night, which our mother somewhat inadvertently exposed us to, and we'd speak of the nightmares it caused as well.

I'll wrap this up by mentioning that it was somehow fitting (given the plot) that it was my mother who had introduced us to this traumatic horror film at such a young age. She really tried her best, though, and neither my brother nor I have become violent criminals, so. 

One more interesting side note—when I was 12, my mom came home from shopping one day with a treat from the VHS bargain bin at K-Mart, and having forgotten the title, she'd once again brought Don't Go in the House into our lives.

the late education of the widow Fay

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1970; written and directed by Leonard Kastle)

If only Janet could sleep...

But now as she lay here in the dark, next to a stranger she doesn't particularly like or trust, in a strange house—in a strange situation—her mind is finally beginning to click, to make some kind of sense of this most unlikely scenario. Has she ever been this careless? This handsome young man had swooped in, charmed her sad, lonesome heart with kindness and flattery (whilst pleading his own loneliness), professed his desires for their future, for her hand in marriage, and she—so enraptured in the wonder of it all—lost sight of herself, and hadn't even allowed for the possibility of something untoward. Poor lonely Janet had simply felt too good about it all, and couldn't help herself. But here in this dark, unfamiliar room, her instincts and scattered recollections of the past couple of days are beginning to cause a stir.

What were Charles and his sister up to in the basement all that time earlier tonight, supposedly locked in? Supposedly hiding her checks in a safe place—the checks she'd hastily endorsed over to him, because he wants to help his bride-to-be open a hat shop right here in Valley Stream.  Ten thousand dollars, practically every cent she has in the world...

As daffy, nasally spinster Janet Fay, Mary Jane Higby gives a terrific performance that is by turns funny and harrowing.

Now that she's finally growing concerned her whirlwind courtship might be too good to be true, she's begun mulling over certain odd details she should've wondered about all along. Earlier that day, when she'd suggested telling her children of the impending nuptials, Charles had politely disagreed, envisaging the wonderful surprise they'd get from finding out she'd already taken the plunge.

And so she relented in making any phone calls—and come to think of it, they might not have approved—and now she's in a strange bed, and the burgeoning awareness that nobody knows where she is hardly helps her unsettled mind. And Charles and his moody sister, Martha, she barely knows these people. There are certain things she needs to hear to put her mind at ease, and she needs to hear them now if she's ever going to get a good night's sleep.

It takes but a few words with tired, sullen Martha for this little talk to escalate into a big commotion, and suddenly Janet realizes the spot she's gotten herself into and begins frantically demanding to see her checks and call her daughter. Just why is this woman, this rather imposing little sister—half-concealing a scowl since the moment they met—radiating all the wrong signals?

Up until this point in THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (and let's face it—awful title), we've witnessed a gradual evolution of the titular couple—who seem to be terrible influences on one another—beginning the night they met.  

That first evening together, within moments of their first shared screen time, they're plotting their first crime—giving Martha's doddering, elderly mother a dangerously potent combination of alcohol and a sleeping pill (so they'll be rid of her for the night).

“I'm sorry my mother's such a nuisance.”

“I think she's adorable.”

“Would you think I was terrible if I gave her a sleeping pill?”

“No. I want to be alone too.”

Soon they're reveling in the misdeed, making love in the same room as the unconscious mother, and it isn't long before Martha's dumping mom permanently into a nursing home and hitting the road with her new lover, who has revealed himself a career con. Prior to this, Martha had been a hard-working but lonely nurse, and looking after her aging mother had been her abiding duty.

In their short time on the road together, the couple had met a few eager prospective “lonely hearts” (members of the same kind of letter-writing clubs from which Ray had found Martha), with Martha always posing as Ray's younger sister.  Things have not gone smoothly with Martha on board, though, her uncontrollable jealousy and inexperience a constant hindrance to the con. 

While violence had never previously been Ray's style (the sweet-talking lothario preferring to take the money and run), the game had just recently turned deadly when Martha drugged and killed one of the swindler's brides, who was a bit too eager to consummate the honeymoon for Martha's liking.

And their most recent endeavor had been a complete bust. Spying Ray and the younger-than-expected woman in a lover's embrace on the beach, the full measure of Martha's love and jealousy (and impulse control) is revealed as she attempts to drown herself.  It's also in these moments—when the seemingly ruthless hustler dives in to save Martha—that a love story, and Ray's true emotions, rise to the surface.  

But love or not, Ray is getting fed up with Martha's jealousy and inability to get with the plan, to see the hustle through, and she realizes it. There can be no mistakes with Janet Fay, an easy mark, not after the last few mishaps—not if they're going to make this partnership work.

With its ultra low-budget and stark, grainy black and white photography and natural lighting, THE HONEYMOON KILLERS looks like old newsreel or documentary footage, something of a nod to its true crime roots (the story is a surprisingly accurate account of the “Lonely Hearts Killers” of the late 1940's, and even keeps the names of the killers and some of the victims the same). Despite the budgetary constraints and inexperience of first-time director, Leonard Kastle, the performances—especially its leads, Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco—are exemplary.  One of the trickier things about this picture is its ability to keep the viewer off balance, to suck you into this strange love story all the while making the victims of these schemers seem realistic yet (more often than not) almost comically foolish and unlikable—lulling you into something like complicity in the crimes. It all serves to make the eventual progression into brutality that much more shocking and disturbing.

Which brings us back to the widow Fay, who is now fast approaching hysterics. Why is Martha so set against Janet calling her daughter, no matter the time? By what right do these people think they can keep her from seeing her checks—after all, it's her money. It's time for some answers.

“No, I want to use the telephone. Where is it?”

Awake in the living room, Ray can hear the argument rise to shouts, and then a loud slap—and knows his plan has been compromised. 

As far as he's concerned, that ten thousand is as good as his. Too much time and effort in this to be otherwise. This is Martha's mess—let her clean it up.

“Ray? Who's Ray?”