The tyranist's thoughts
Featuring neither a house nor death (well, not much anyway), House of Death is a subpar, early '80s slasher that fails to deliver in any real way. During a time when the slasher was first rising to an acceptable level in the video marketplace, everyone was trying to cash in. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it didn't. Interestingly there was already a formula for such movies. In the case of this one, it follows the formula almost precisely and yet fails to achieve any effect because of general confusion, bad special effects and terrible camera work.
A young couple are slaughtered and set to float down the river. This young couple will be missed but only ever found by someone who will shortly joining them. The town carnival is the next day and a group of college bound students get together amid the interminable carnival scenes and decide to have a party down by the river that night. You should be able to pick out the killer at this point. Well, the party finally happens and people finally start to die. When the killer is finally revealed, pay close attention or you won't recognize him or his motivations.
Sloppily done. The music was annoying in the extreme and the death effects terrible. Even when we did see someone die, it sometimes wasn't clear how they died. The plot is better suited for an hour than an hour and a half. The acting while not overtly terrible does suffer in a few places. The dialogue isn't bad though and I have to believe that the problem didn't lie in the script, but in the filming of it.
The biggest problem with this one is that they try too hard to cover up who the killer is. You can pick him out of the crowd, but even when he is revealed you have to be paying attention to tell who it is. I thought I was wrong until I rewound the video and looked again. Terrible and predictable, this one just isn't worth the time spent unless you've seen the rest of the slashers from this period and need one more to satiate your sick hunger.