Witchouse Year: 1999 Director: Jack Reed Written by: Matthew Jason Walsh Threat: Witch Weapon of Choice: Electricity Based upon: none IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Witchouse 2: Blood Coven
Witchouse 3: Demon Fire

The tyranist's thoughts
Another Full Moon Feature, and really almost the only thing that persuaded us to pick this one up was that it was from Full Moon. Oh, and it has a sequel. I'm still not sure why that was something to be said in its favor.
A group of people who might be friends and might just be acquaintances are invited to a May Day party (pay close attention though or you'll miss the May Day reference that tells you when it happens). The hostess is the sweetest, kindest witch you're ever likely to meet. She likes to think she's evil and that she's brought this particular group together for purposes of revenge, but we know the truth. She's the super-nice girl next door even when she is trying to kill people.
Anwyay, this one sucked. It was quite disappointing in that even Full Moon's misses generally aren't quite as bad as this. It could be that Rish and I had just finished watching two other movies that featured astonishingly good acting and dialogue that made this one stand out in relief, but I choose to believe that it would have sucked this bad no matter when we saw it.
There are a couple nice moments, mostly involving the hostess and the mysterious girl whose purpose at the party isn't explained until later. Well, actually, that sounds wrong. Those two were rarely on screen together and the nice bits occurred for each of them separately.
Just don't see it. You don't need to and to tellyou the truth, I feel a bit put out that I will have to watch the sequel for you when I know you're going to take my advice on this one.

Rish Outfield's reviews
Tyranist and I saw this one together after renting a couple of modern versions of the 70's backwoods slasher films (Wrong Turn and House of 1000 Corpses). We figured we ought to watch something fun to cleanse the palate.
Turns out this one was just dumb.
It used to be that if a film was released by Full Moon that meant something, didn't it? Now, it's just hard to tell. I guess it is a guarantee the film is going to be cheap. We figured that because there was a sequel next to it (turns out there are two), this one had to be pretty good.
Like tyranist said above, it just didn't work. The story itself was actually quite cool, although it reminded me of those Night of the Demons movies where Angela was inviting you to a party that Freddy and Jason were too scared to come to. But the acting and staging and editing and writing was all sub-par. And miscasting like you wouldn't believe. As my pal said, the "evil" chick was really wholesome-looking and pleasantly plump. During the scene where she's talking about taking bloody revenge on those who killed her devilish ancestor, I was thinking, "This is a girl I wouldn't mind bringing home to meet Mom."
I'd Recommend It To: The movie was gore-free, scare-free, and nudity-free. Would YOU want to see it?

Total Skulls: 28

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?