HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS **** UK 1983 Dir: Pete Walker. 97 mins
In a bold move, Cannon Films asked Pete Walker, the filmmaker responsible for some of the most nihilistic, establishment-baiting British horror films of the 1970s, and MARK OF THE DEVIL screenwriter Michael Armstrong to adapt “The Seven Keys to Baldpate” into an all-star old-school horror picture. The once in a lifetime horror-icon ensemble (only missing the intended Elsa Lanchester, who proved unavailable) gives all of its ageing legends a decent slab of screen time after earlier (less expansive) team ups like SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN usually reduced them to cameos.
The old-dark-house set-up has mullet-sporting writer Desi Arnaz Jr., deliberately out of of place amidst all the above-the-title genre stars, betting his agent (Richard Todd) that he can crank out a Gothic novel better than “Wuthering Heights” in 24 hours, at a foreboding mansion overseen by ominous caretakers John Carradine and Sheila Keith. Emerging melodramatically from the shadows and accompanied by strategically placed thunderclaps, the stars are afforded fabulously grandiose entrances: the biggest showman of them all, Vincent Price, turns up announcing “I have returned!” and relishes the best of Armstrong’s lines: “Don’t interrupt me while I’m soliloquising!”
The most amusing aspect is the central conceit of a family reunion wherein Carradine is the father of Price, Keith and Peter Cushing – allowing for the bizarre fanboy casting of Cushing and Price as brothers! Cushing, afflicted with a speech impediment, has a lot of fun, Keith warbles at the piano (upon her murder, Price quips “Piano wire…he must have heard her singing…”) while offering dubious punch to everyone and Christopher Lee is the heartless bugger intent on tearing down the property he has just purchased.
The various, knowing nods to classic Gothic fiction (Bad Brother in the attic) and horror cliches (black cats, “the classic heroine line”) add to the pleasure and, although the script is punctuated by discreetly gruesome murders, the approach and form is closer to Agatha Christie than the-then fashionable slasher genre. The epilogue is especially delightful – variations of it appear in later self-conscious horror films like APRIL FOOL’S DAY – allowing for marvellous interaction between the veterans, who gamely make fun of their own careers onscreen. A wonderfully delivered, catty / affectionate “Bitch!” from Price to Lee is probably worth buying the movie on its own.
As a postscript, Derek Pykett’s feature-length documentary “House of the Long Shadows…Revisited” (included on the recent U.K. Fabulous Films Blu-ray) is one of the best of its kind, with fascinating insights into its creation and genuinely touching recollections from key players that will only make you love it more.
Review by Steven West
HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS is available on Amazon