House, 1986

I don't know anyone who was brought up in the 70's who didn't like The Greatest American Hero. William Katt was a god during his reign as that character, in my eyes. Robert Culp was just the coolest, even though I hadn't been around for his turn in I-Spy with Cosby. I still thought he was the shit.

House is one of those great horror movies that you could just tell everyone on the set was having a ball. The tried to break some rules, they stuck to things that worked, and they made a very holey script a very fun movie.

One of his first real roles was in King and De Palma's movie version of Carrie. From the beginning, Katt showed us that bright, humor filled personality. The Greatest American Hero lasted 3 seasons, and I think it typecasted Katt in the same way that, originally, Knight Rider typecasted David Hasselhoff.

Katt would find intermittent parts in television during the 80's, specifically in the Perry Mason series. After that, it was B-movie galore, working steadily through the late 80's and 90's. Nothing too incredible, nothing to write home about, and to me, it's a damn shame.

George Wendt and Richard Moll round out the cast, all while their respective careers took turns for the better with their television shows. With Wendt, he'd become a part of the longest running comedy series in television history, Cheers. Moll would settle in with the cast of Night Court for a number of years. Both of them played their parts fairly well, though their talents are seeped in 80's cheese.

Kay Lenz has been in show business for quite some time, with a huge list of television credits, and some ok film credits as well. Nothing too mainstream, mostly movie-of-the-week type stuff. But, she did an ok job in this film.

It should be noted that the woman who turned Katt's character's head in the film, Mary Stavin, won the Miss World contest in 1977, and was a Bond girl in Octopussy in 1983. I guess she "Really, really, really" wanted to get into acting. She hasn't done much real work, except for her work in Twin Peaks in 1990. Her movie credits aren't spectacular, with Caddyshack II being the top mainstream film of her career. Too bad.

The script is written by Fred Dekker and Ethan Wiley. The story is basically this "What would happen if a horror writer moved to a haunted house?" That's the basic idea, and it just goes to haywire from there. There's some great parts in this movie, some neat dialog, and Katt ends up playing a pretty cool character... but, jesus, there are some serious reaches in this film.

Dekker would go on to write some decent work. Night of the Creeps, The Monster Squad, Tales from the Crypt, Ricochet (a great story), and (shudder) RoboCop 3 (which he also directed) with Frank Miller. He's also helmed to write episodes of the new Star Trek series Enterprise, which should be really neat, the ship's captain being none other than Scott Bakula. I'll be looking forward to that series.

Wiley would go on to write and direct the second House film, House II: The Second Story. Get it? He'd also, over 10 years later, direct Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror. What is that happens to these people? House was a clever story. House II was just for fun, obviously. It should be noted that Wiley worked on both Gremlins and Return of the Jedi as a creature technician. Let's hope he's still got those agency contacts, and can get some decent work.

House was directed by Steve Miner. Miner had previously directed both Friday the 13th, parts 2 and 3 before directing House. This film has some great humor and scares in it, and I think, for the time, for the budget and for the story, he did a fine job. Miner would go on to direct another cult 80's horror flick, Warlock, which was quite good, as well.

From there, Miner would pretty much stick to television, along with some bad comedies like My Father the Hero and Big Bully. In 1998 he would direct Halloween H20, which was a pretty decent movie, but nothing we hadn't seen before. From there he went on to Felicity and Dawson's Creek and Wasteland... directed one of two sea creature movies in 1999, Lake Placid (Deep Blue Sea was the other one)... and has Texas Rangers coming out in 2001, which should be a terrible film with a god awful cast.

All in all, this is a fun movie. I really enjoyed watching it again, having not seen it in years. It's still got the same great humor about it, and even though some of the effects are cheesy, they're still great to watch.

House I and House II come in a special edition set of 20,000 units. For $18.99, I would suggest purchasing these.