The Shunned House

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: Continual bloodletting and grossness took the place of any coherent story. This soon became very tiresome and repetitious. This film is a boring disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: This movie is an insult to HP Lovecraft & his fans
Review: If you are a HP Lovecraft fan who is familiar with his writings, I highly recommend that you avoid the Italian film "The Shunned House". Unfortunately, this is another one of those movies, like "Cthulhu Mansion", that only uses Lovecraft's name as a selling point. The three tales, "The Shunned House", "The Music of Erich Zann", and "Dreams in the Witch House", bare very little resemblance to the original short stories that they are supposed to be based on. Artistic license? Bah, if the proper story titles were ommited from the movie, no one would make the Lovecraft connection.

If you can overlook the misuse of Lovecraft and his works, then you are in for an okay video rental if you enjoy strange, gory, and mediocre horror movies.

Better yet, just go buy "Dagon" and try to find the out-of-print "The Resurrected" for rental if you want to see two excellent, faithful Lovecraft movie adaptions in modern settings.

Rating:
Summary: This movie is an insult to HP Lovecraft & his fans
Review: If you are a HP Lovecraft fan who is familiar with his writings, I highly recommend that you avoid the Italian film "The Shunned House". Unfortunately, this is another one of those movies, like "Cthulhu Mansion", that only uses Lovecraft's name as a selling point. The three tales, "The Shunned House", "The Music of Erich Zann", and "Dreams in the Witch House", bare very little resemblance to the original short stories that they are supposed to be based on. Artistic license? Bah, if the proper story titles were ommited from the movie, no one would make the Lovecraft connection.

If you can overlook the misuse of Lovecraft and his works, then you are in for an okay video rental if you enjoy strange, gory, and mediocre horror movies.

Better yet, just go buy "Dagon" and try to find the out-of-print "The Resurrected" for rental if you want to see two excellent, faithful Lovecraft movie adaptions in modern settings.

Rating:
Summary: Finally a good Lovecraft film!
Review: In this ensanguined rendering of three H. P. Lovecraft's stories, director Ivan Zuccon weaves together a visual of the macabre and madness that Lovecraft is known for.  Adapted by Zuccon and Enrico Saletti, the script integrates The Shunned House, The Music of Erich Zann, and Dreams in Witch-House to fuse together one unnerving cinematic companion piece.  
A writer, played by Giuseppe Lorusso, and his girlfriend (Federica Quaglieri) arrive at a dilapidated former inn to investigate the unusually high number of murders and suicides that had taken place while the hotel was in operation.  Actual time grows a little fuzzy as what begins as a ghost story evolves into the merging of the present with two stories from generations past.
As aberration ensues in each of the film's characters, The Shunned House teeters between conventional spookiness and extreme gore.  One rather disturbing scene in particular depicts a musician gnawing off a chunk of her own wrist so she could "play" upon the exposed veins as if they were the strings of her violin.
Albeit a little confusing, the storyline keeps the audience suspended in anticipation of what's to happen next. 
Though filmed on videotape, the picture quality surprisingly isn't all that lacking. There are even a few scenes where light usage was artistically regulated.  However, sound quality fluctuates making the already thick Italian accents of the actors even more difficult to understand at times. Even so, The Shunned House is to be embraced by horror film lovers and H. P. Lovecraft fans alike. - Melanie Falina

Rating:
Summary: Finally a good Lovecraft film!
Review: In this ensanguined rendering of three H. P. Lovecraft's stories, director Ivan Zuccon weaves together a visual of the macabre and madness that Lovecraft is known for.  Adapted by Zuccon and Enrico Saletti, the script integrates The Shunned House, The Music of Erich Zann, and Dreams in Witch-House to fuse together one unnerving cinematic companion piece.  
A writer, played by Giuseppe Lorusso, and his girlfriend (Federica Quaglieri) arrive at a dilapidated former inn to investigate the unusually high number of murders and suicides that had taken place while the hotel was in operation.  Actual time grows a little fuzzy as what begins as a ghost story evolves into the merging of the present with two stories from generations past.
As aberration ensues in each of the film's characters, The Shunned House teeters between conventional spookiness and extreme gore.  One rather disturbing scene in particular depicts a musician gnawing off a chunk of her own wrist so she could "play" upon the exposed veins as if they were the strings of her violin.
Albeit a little confusing, the storyline keeps the audience suspended in anticipation of what's to happen next. 
Though filmed on videotape, the picture quality surprisingly isn't all that lacking. There are even a few scenes where light usage was artistically regulated.  However, sound quality fluctuates making the already thick Italian accents of the actors even more difficult to understand at times. Even so, The Shunned House is to be embraced by horror film lovers and H. P. Lovecraft fans alike. - Melanie Falina

Rating:
Summary: Cheap
Review: Poor Horror Genre Film.
Trying to get some money from Horror revival.

Rating:
Summary: Shunned House, reason to believe again in the horror films
Review: The Shunned House is an anthology film set in the same house during the 1930's, 40's and the present. The film combines three Lovecraft stories: The Shunned House, the Music of Erich Zann, and Dreams in the Witch House. The film is directed by Ivan Zuccon, the director of The Unknown Beyond and the Darkness Beyond. Zuccon has the best of both worlds, setting his story in the present but flashing back and forth between a number of periods in this house's past. A restrained use of CGI allows for some wonderful transitions between these time periods as well.

This film does a pretty great job of combining the three stories. I'm especially happy with it's handling of Dreams in the Witch House. The concept of interdimensional travel from that story really becomes the keystone for the whole film.
The house is a major character (ala The Shinning, or HPL's The Street), and my god, what an incredible location. This rivals the old house in The Shuttered Room for potential, but here that potential is fully realised.

The acting is pretty good all around.
While Lucio Fulci's influence is clear, I would say there's some David Lynch in there too, along with Mario Bava and Michele Soavi. There's some brief nudity and some extensive blood letting, but nothing too gratuitous (well, okay maybe a little but it's fun!).

I am very excited that this film will soon be available in the U.S. and I highly recommend it to folks looking for a good Italian horror styled Lovecraft adaptation.

Christian Matzke

Rating:
Summary: GREAT MOVIE
Review: THE SHUNNED HOUSE. With Fedrica Quaglieri. Directed by Ivan Zuccon. Running time: 100 minutes. Not rated (Brain Damage Films on VHS). The stories of H.P. Lovecraft present a challenge to any filmmaker trying to adapt them. The great American fantasy writer always wrote of "nameless horrors" and "indescribable creatures," so how can you show them onscreen? One of the few filmmakers to do right by Lovecraft is Italian director Ivan Zuccon, a genuine talent who has made several Lovecraft-inspired films, the latest of which is THE SHUNNED HOUSE. Shot on digital video, it looks better than many 35mm movies, with its Mario Bava-inspired lighting scheme and fluid tracking shots. The film combines three Lovecraft tales: THE SHUNNED HOUSE, THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN and DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE. Each tale takes place in a different era: the 30s, the 40s and the present. It's all filmed in a real house somewhere in the Italian countryside, and the house itself becomes a character, ala Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING, which this film in many ways resembles. There are some truly creepy and disturbing scenes here, and some of the images will haunt you for days--especially that of the insane woman whose lips are sewn shut, and who is compelled to pound her head against the wall over and over. Zuccon is a filmmaker to watch: if this is the kind of movie he can make on a low budget, what could he do with lots of money? You can get THE SHUNNED HOUSE on video from Brain Damage Films. If you're a Lovecraft fan, or a fan of the genre, don't shun it. --Bruce G. Hallenbeck

Rating:
Summary: A grueling exercise in extreme fright on a low budget
Review: This movie is a grueling exercise in extreme fright on a low budget. I found this to be referred to all that was once strong in the euro scene back in the day, all the atmosphere and low on the story. It jumps around from room to room and back to one part of the past, then shifts to another room where another part of the past happened and so on. All seem to connect in some way since we are grappled with insane and disturbing THE SHINING type mood along with upbeat camera work like the new version of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. This movie really touches me in a lot of ways meaning how unapologetic it can be. If you can't freak me out in some way whether it be a bloody gross out or ghostly apparitions inflicting as much trauma a la AMITYVILLE 2:The Possession then out the door you go. Hanging bodies, The slicing of many wrists and the playing of arteries which excellently enables a deaf mute violin player to continue to play her instrument since all her strings broke, sewn mouths and staked eyes familiar to Argento's OPERA, dead children, tilted point of views, bloody mad surgeons, and massive amounts of killer editing. The editing is probably part of the star quality of this directorial debut. Flash here, jiggle jiggle jiggle there, in and out in and out here, man the camera doesn't stop. Even when they are just sitting there talking amongst each other the camera is doing something. I don't find it to be to over the top, more a compliment to the ever increasing suspense the flick gives off. This music is of almost a SESSION 9/ Aphex Twins delectability but tends to monopolize on the only chanting riff amongst the whole movie again and again and again.

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