HOUSE - Horror Films that Changed My Life #1

It being the Halloween season, we thought it would be fun to share with you some of the horror films we've seen throughout the years that have in a way changed our lives… basically films that pretty much screwed with out heads and jacked us up. 

Most of the movies I will be talking about in my articles are films that I watched when I was growing up as a kid. These are films with twisted aspects that have been embedded in my memory, given me nightmares, and lost a lot of sleep over throughout my childhood years… thus helping shape the person I am today.

I don't want to start this editorial off with any obvious films, so the first movie I want to talk about is a 1986 film called House. The movie was directed by Steve Miner and starred William Katt and George Wendt. As a kid this movie was terrifying, but now I find it goofy as hell, but as a kid it gleefully scared the shit out of me.

The story follows a horror writer named Roger Cobb who moves into his aunts house where his son Jimmy mysteriously disappeared years earlier. Roger's search for Jimmy ruins his marriage and writing career. It is the sudden death of his aunt brings Roger back to the house to write a novel about his experiences in the Vietnam war, only his nightmares come to life in the most terrifying ways imaginable. The house resents his presence and he is forced to go through a horrific journey into his past reliving Vietnam, and the disappearance of his son. He has to overcome some wickedly crazy monsters and ghosts. The House is evil as hell, and turns out to be a gateway to another dimension. Cobb eventually figures out that his son is being held captive in another world, and the only way to it is through the bathroom mirror. 

Here are some moments from the film that I remember as a kid:

Roger Cobb has a nightmare about his missing son, and while playing in the yard a big nasty dessicated hand erupts from the ground and attacks the kid.  

Cobb ends up facing off against a possessed wall-mounted marlin that starts flapping around and screaming, he ends up taking it out with a shotgun. Cobb also faces off with an army of floating rusty garden tools, and a manifistation of his es-wife wife that ends up turning into a fat nasty old latex ghoul. After he takes out the grotesque beast the movie cuts to a very strange music montage of him disposing of the corpse. 

There's a great scene that involves Cobb and his next door neighbor played by George Wendt, and a crazy monster living in a closet that only comes out at midnight. Watching this play out is one of my favorite scenes of the movie.

There's also a scene where he is babysitting his hot neighbors kid. While he is writing the kids runs off and ends up being kidnapped by two crazy sweaty fat butterball demons. Cobb is trying to save the kid from being pulled up into the chimney of the house. 

As I am writing these things out I'm realizing just how freakin' cheesy this movie really is, but like I said, as a little kid it scared the hell out of me. To this day I find myself having flash backs of this movie at the most random moments. So for me I have a nostalgic connection to the movie.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, and you end up watching it, you'll most likely think it's a piece of horror film garbage, but having grown up with it, I think it's awesome! And it's one of those horror films that guided me on my direction of love for horror movies. I just loved that thrill of being scared when I was a kid, and I wanted to watch the movie over and again to get that feeling. Hell, I still love that feeling of being scared! It doesn't happen much these days with the movies that are coming out, but when it does I know I've found a good horror flick.

Have you seen House? If so what did you think? Did you grow up on it like I did? If you've watched it recently what did you think?

Here's the Trailer:

Here's a collection of scary scenes: