If Rod Serling had been replaced by a municipal mortician with a hangover and a VHS camcorder, you’d get The House of the Dead. It’s an anthology film where the real horror isn’t the monsters, the murders, or the mysterious caskets—it’s the thought of spending 80 minutes with a production that looks like it was shot during someone’s lunch break on a foggy Tuesday in Tulsa.
A Frame Story So Thin It Could Snap in the Breeze
We start with Talmudge, a wandering adulterer caught in a rainstorm, who stumbles into the home of a mortician. The mortician proceeds to tell him “interesting” stories about his current clients—by which I mean, four tales so anemic they’d barely qualify as filler on an episode of Tales from the Crypt, if Tales from the Crypt had been filmed by a high school AV club. The mortician has that gentle, understated creepiness you get from a man who’s spent too long alone with formaldehyde, but the effect is ruined by the fact that he talks like he’s just reading instructions for assembling a folding chair.
The Segments: A Parade of Bad Decisions
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Mean Schoolteacher vs. Murder-Kids – A bitter teacher is harassed by feral children with fangs. This could have been scary, but the child actors chew the scenery harder than they chew the teacher. Imagine Village of the Damnedif the kids were hopped up on Pixy Stix and mispronouncing their lines.
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The Killer Cameraman – A photographer strangles women on film. It’s basically a PSA about never dating a man who owns both a Polaroid and a shag carpet. The “twist” is that he gets executed. Riveting.
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Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson’s Stupid Cousins – Two egomaniac detectives try to outwit each other in a plot so convoluted it feels like an improv sketch gone wrong. The moral: If you invite your rival home for dinner, check his briefcase for explosives.
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The Office Jerk from Hell – A selfish businessman gets trapped in a building that’s apparently been designed by M.C. Escher after a head injury. He spends days stumbling around, sweating, and drinking himself to death. Which, to be fair, is the most relatable segment in the film.
The “Twist” Ending You Saw Coming From the First Scene
Of course, the final coffin is meant for Talmudge, because nothing says “surprise” like telegraphing your punchline from 40 minutes away. He runs, he’s shot, and the mortician smugly hitches a ride in the ambulance. Roll credits. The only truly shocking thing here is that this was the director’s only feature film—shocking because someone actually let it happen once.
Final Thoughts
The House of the Dead isn’t scary, it isn’t suspenseful, and it’s only “funny” if you enjoy the kind of humor where the joke is that you wasted your evening. It’s the cinematic equivalent of finding a dusty Whitman’s Sampler in the back of your pantry, eating it anyway, and realizing the chocolates are filled with sadness.
