Tag: old dark house

[EXPRESSO] Keeper (2025) | ♬ Go to the woods and see ♬

After Longlegs and The Monkey, Oz Perkins is back with a new horror film (releasing just 2 days ago here), Keeper, but i’ve never heard much… well, anything about it, ill or good, but it might be me accidentally missing coverage, wouldn’t be the first time.

So i went in blind… and i kinda get why this didn’t generate much buzz, maybe, but first the plot.

A couple spends their anniversary weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods, and once there strange things start happening, revealing the house’s dark secrets..

I don’t think Keeper is a bad film, at all, but i’m willing to call it Oz Perkins first “trip up”, it is disappointing, because even if the final twist pays off, makes the build up worth it for an interesting turn… it doesn’t change that it has to do so with a character explaining the lore to us, instead of you known, just showing us, since it’s a movie and all of that, plus it it intriguing but nothing special enough to balance out and gliss over the fact the build up (and the premise in itself) seems to be made irritating and generic on purpose with how the cliches are placed.

Yes, obviously to play with audiences’ expectations (and with the horror archetype of the “cabin in the woods”), and it does work, but the story could have been more cohesive, or have people invested more by the narrative itself instead of the deliberate bold faced deception that also saps any mystery the story could have had when the loredump drops, to say nothing of how some subplots are simply kinda forgotten by the end.

It’s still far from unwatchable, mind you, thanks in no small part to Maslany’s great performance as Liz, but it’s also disappointing.

The Spooktacular Eight #7: The House On Skull Mountain (1974)

Blaxploitation isn’t my forte, but there’s a lot of horror movies in this vague “category-label”.

I like to not go for the obvious choice (when possible), and we didn’t spotlight an “old dark house movie” with the more typical murder mystery set-up of always: reading of the will of long distant relative that recently croaked in presence of his nephews, many not having ever seen the old lady or the other cousins before this very occasion.

It just happens the deceased was a voodoo priestess living in her southern estate, and her relatives that stay to hear the will are being killed off one by one with voodoo magic, with the survivors trying to figure out who is the killer before it gets to them as well.

And i guess it worked a bit too well as this was the final film for Mike Evans (Good Times, The Jeffersons, All In The Family), not his final acting role, thought.

As you could guess from the plot and the title, it’s a blackploitation horror film with a somewhat gothic theme, due to the mansion and it taking place on “Skull Mountain”, which means some real estate did Skeletor dirty, so to speak. I say “somewhat” due to voodoo being involved, but it’s magical, supernatural stuff regardless, and it looking at a different tradition makes it less trite.

And as one of the characters puts it “one doesn’t exclude the other”.

In case you disagree, there’s the costant thunder cracking outside the mansion (yes, done in the exact same fashion you expect) that sets the gothic mood, the nearly costant rain and some fog. And “tribal drumming”.

An irksome point is that i feel the characters called there to the house were made cousins and thus related way late into scripting to avoid the very notion of afroamerican and white people (as one of the cousins it’s played by Victor French) having a relationship, which it’s fuckin racist as hell, but even odder since they didn’t change some of the music during the “date” montage to fit this.

It’s iffy, to say the least, but it’s also a sign of the decade it was made, i guess.

Despite what you may think, the “blaxploitation” label it’s kinda ill fitting, as this doesn’t have gratituous gore, nudity or harsh language (it barely has blood), it’s indeed a old dark house type of horror thriller that focuses on the atmosphere, the supernatural events and magic, and it’s fairly effective, a bit on the cheesy side (as there are skull shaped door knockers) but spooky indeed.

It’s a bit slow at times since it’s not a mystery who’s actually causing the murder and how, so you wait for a twist, and after a ritual tribal dance scene that goes on a little longer than i liked (to be honest i had enough of rhytmic african drumming solos for a good 6 months)… you don’t really get it either, as the situation it’s pretty much what you thought was shaping up to be.

But you get a pretty spectacular finale, so it’s definitely more than “fine”.

I honestly don’t have much else to say or to complain about, it’s good.

Solid production values, good atmosphere, good acting, and not really exploitative, so i can conclude i’d recommend giving The House On Skull Mountain a good watch however you can.

And remember, blood and magic are thicker than water or skin pigmentation.

Seriously, it’s a good one not deserving its relative obscurity.