Review #301: Witchouse (1999)

October 2024 Horror Origins Review #18- Witchouse (1999)

Watch it here on Tubi!

Which house? This house.

We're back with another Full Moon Pictures film; and as you might expect, this one is full of cheesy late-90s goodness. I don't remember much about my first viewing but Witchouse quickly became a favorite of my wife's and mine at our first apartment, and it was regular viewing while we were doing things around the house or background noise while we slept. There's several lines from this movie we still quote regularly and as bad as it is, it's bad in all the best ways.

Witchouse starts off like so many other cheap horror films do: two members of a friend group arrive at a destination before everybody else, decide they're just too horny, and then get killed by the villain (only for none of the other characters to give them more than a passing mention for the rest of the film). After an absurdly long and intense title sequence we're introduced to the rest of our characters, a group of college students that have known each other since childhood (despite none of them liking any of the others and having nothing in common). These "friends" have been invited to a party at a sprawling mansion by Elizabeth, a creepy girl they knew as kids who would always play macabre pranks and had an obsession with witchcraft. Elizabeth has gathered them all together (as well as one other girl who seems unconnected) on the anniversary of the death of Lilith LeFey, her ancestor that was burned at the stake for witchcraft. They perform some kind of ritual (that's basically just everyone sitting around in a circle while Elizabeth tells the story of Lilith's execution) and then the friends wander off. They start getting picked off one-by-one by the intentionally-resurrected demonic spirit of Lilith LeFey, and it turns out Elizabeth invited them all to the party specifically because they are descendants of the witch hunters who killed Lilith the first time, and the witch wants revenge. But the power of Applied Sciences prevails, and Lilith and Elizabeth are both defeated and the two remaining protagonists walk off into the icy cold May 1st weather and the movie ends.

So, this movie is bad, for a lot of reasons, the first being the atrocious dialogue. The script seriously feels like it was written by a teenager who just learned some tidbits about college and decided to show off their newfound knowledge by writing all of the characters to randomly mention their Majors at every given opportunity; every line in the entire movie is over-written, with characters saying two or three times more words to convey a message than they need to. (For example: there's a point where Jack, our male protagonist, reflexively raises a crucifix and recites the Lord's Prayer to ward off Lilith, which seems to work. The female protagonist, Jennifer, asks him why he thought to do that- to which he responds, "I don't know. It seemed right at the time. What can I say- I was raised Catholic." Each of those three statements could have been a perfectly fine response for the character to say, but the writer had him say all three in quick succession.) This, coupled with how needlessly quippy yet socially awkward most of the characters are, really makes it feel like the movie would be much better served if the characters were aged down just a few years- instead of being established college students, make them 17 or 18 years old. It's not a huge change but I think it would go a long way.

But if the dialogue wasn't bad enough, the acting is worse. The actress playing Elizabeth reads every one of her lines as if it's the turning point of the entire film- she speaks with this slow and methodical cadence, giving everything she says this unearned gravitas, even when all she's saying is "Please excuse me while I answer the door, won't you?" The way all of the guests act while they're at this party is so melodramatic- one character just broods by himself in the corner, another accuses her boyfriend of flirting with Elizabeth despite him barely saying anything to her for the entire movie- that it feels not only like the dialogue was written by or for a high schooler, but also like the characters were instructed to act like high schoolers too. It's very weird how much of a dissonance there is.

Also, there's a plot twist at the end of the movie that makes no sense (and really serves no purpose). Earlier in the film, Jack and Jennifer realize that each of the party guests are direct descendents of the witch hunters that killed Lilith- except Jennifer, who Elizabeth specifically invited separately but nobody knows why. At the very end of the movie, after Lilith has been defeated by Jack's Applied Sciences Major, Elizabeth tries to kill the two of them in a last ditch effort at revenge. Jennifer then reveals that she is a direct descendent of Lilith's first attempted victim (the reason Lilith was put to death in the first place). I don't know how or when Jennifer realized this (she certainly didn't bring it up earlier when she and Jack realized the lineage connection for everybody else), and the only reason I can think of it being relevant at all is that Elizabeth intentionally invited her as part of Lilith's ultimate revenge (not only would she kill the descendents of the people who killed her, she would kill the descendent of the person she failed to kill so many years ago). Except Elizabeth is as shocked to find out Jennifer's lineage as anybody else, so WHY DID ELIZABETH INVITE HER TO THE PARTY? The only people who were invited to this party were invited for a reason... except Jennifer. So did Elizabeth invite an extra person by accident? And did that extra person just happen to have a significant connection almost identical to everybody else? Or is this a remnant of an earlier version of the script that should have gotten cut?

And one last thing I need to bring up: People in these movies act so freaking weird when at someone else's party. The two people in the cold open arrive at the house and nobody answers the door, but find it unlocked- so they go inside, go down into the basement, and start removing all of their clothes to have sex. (Pro tip: if you're having a quickie, YOU DON'T NEED TO TAKE ALL OF YOUR CLOTHES OFF, especially if you're in SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE AND THEY DON'T KNOW YOU'RE THERE.) Later on, two more characters walk away from the group (immediately after Elizabeth said she had an activity she wanted everyone to participate in) to wander upstairs, find a bedroom, have sex, TAKE A NAP, and then take a shower. (And then when Elizabeth asks where those two are, someone else says "Oh, you don't want to know." Dude, IT'S MY FREAKING HOUSE, YES I WANT TO KNOW!) What would you do if you were hosting a party, two guests disappeared for a couple hours, and then showed back up with wet hair?

I know I've complained a lot about this movie, but I really need to stress how much of a cozy, silly delight Witchouse is. The characters are all cheesy, the setting is spooky and overdesigned, and the climax is ridiculous. But I love this movie with all my heart and watching it for the first time in like ten years really took me back to some simpler times.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Baggies Full of Gold Paint

Nostalgic Rating: 9/10 Protects-Me-From-Evil Pentagrams (Or Whaaaaaaat....)

Rest in Peace: Dave Oren Ward, the guy who played Tony the Stoner, was murdered shortly after this movie finished filming, and the end credits feature an In Memoriam title card for him.