Terror comes home in this pair of genre favorites
The haunted house has been a staple throughout film history which can be traced back to the pre-talkie days. Throughout each era, cinema has offered up portraits of homes haunted in some form or another by otherwordly forces that go beyond anything its inhabitants have had to deal with in their lives up to that point. Some examples have proven to be both quintessential and iconic, from the still-palpable classic The Haunting to even David Fincher’s Panic Room. The idea of the home as a fortress with the ability to contain both safety and terror continues to provide an endless storytelling canvas that is still being explored. Recently, the good folks at Scream Factory decided to celebrate the idea of the home as a horror-filled sanctuary with the release of 1983’s Of Unknown Origin and 1971’s The House that Dripped Blood, two films which effectively show the kinds of horrors which can exist in the place most commonly known as “home sweet home.”
Four years before he became forever immortalized as RoboCop, Peter Weller played a New York businessman named Bart Hughes. Bart has a lot to be grateful for, including a beautiful wife (Shannon Tweed, in her film debut), a loving son, a thriving career, and a renovated brownstone. When his family goes away on a trip, Bart finds his home invaded by a enormous rat who is set to destroy him by driving him insane and tearing apart his home in the process.
Made in the early 1980s, Of Unknown Origin is squarely an attack on the invasion of the yuppie culture that would come to represent the decade. Looking at Bart play the role of a Manhattan hot shot with a corner office feels off in a way since the audience can totally get a sense of the character’s former life as a sort of ruffian who would never dream of selling out to “the man.” As tensions between him and the giant rodent in question intensify, Bart plunges back to his primal self, giving into the maddening effects his furry, oversized nemesis imparts. It’s because of this that Bart’s tormentor ends up becoming the accidental hero of the film, serving as a condemner of the single-minded materialism that has come to signify both Bart’s life and the times in general. Of Unknown Origin is not a particularly scary film, and its efects are so of their time. Still, the movie is an entertaining genre piece which offers up a prime example of a man who strips himself of all his conditioning when pushed to his absolute edge.
1971’s The House That Dripped Blood is one of the various screenplays written after Psycho author Robert Bloch set his sights on the screen. Although this horror anthology comes courtesy of Amicus, the work does retain the writer’s voice in telling this tale of an inviting large home in the English countryside that holds of a history of horrific events which have befallen those who arrive to stay there.
While not necessarily in the same vein as Psycho, The House that Dripped Blood does offer up a diverting set of stories featuring individuals drawn to a home through methods of fate and chance only to meet a monstrous end. The stories range from an author (Denholm Elliot) suffering writer’s block whose creation comes to life, to a temperamental actor (Jon Pertwee) who finds bats lurking about, to a widowed father (Christopher Lee) afraid of his little girl and her special powers. Each story in The House that Dripped Blood has it’s own early ‘70s horror flavor and special twist, proving a top example of the joys that come when viewing a solid horror anthology. If there’s a common theme that exists between all the stories, it’s the complex idea of love for another and how warped such an emotion can become. Above all though, The House that Dripped Blood does right as a haunted house tale in the way it illustrates the dark history a house can hold from all the souls who have come through it, some of whom have never left.
It goes without saying that both films are as different as can be in virtually every way imaginable. Yet both Of Unknown Origin and The House that Dripped Blood offer up portraits of the terror-filled home that goes from a safe haven where inhabitants can be at their most vulnerable, to an inescapable dungeon where their greatest fears have them trapped. There’s something about the idea of menace and terror in a place meant to signify the epitome of absolute warmth and serenity that cannot help but come off as intriguing. Because of this, the haunted house will live on in horror cinema for decades to come. Even as the face of the genre may continue to change, the notion of one’s home operating as a dark world unto its own remains one of the most visceral examples of terror ever conjured up.
Of Unknown Origin and The House that Dripped Blood are now available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory.
