Must See Movie...

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a 2012 recycled made for TV film called "American Horror House." The film opens with a Lizzie Borden scene and then the house changes ownership to a sorority house that has no secrets from the viewer. New pledges are hazed as a party happens on Halloween night with the ghost slashers of the house. That's about it.Four girls in bras/panties. No sex, nudity or swearing. Relatively kid safe. One for the girls on a sleep over. Plenty of blood.

Not entirely avoidable by all means. There is some decent gore both in quality and amount, meaning that there is a fair bit of it and it doesn't look cheap. Some of the death scenes(though maybe there were too many because the horror elements outside of them suffered) are inventive and have an appropriate stomach-churning effect, the one with the saw stood out, while the other standout scene was when the sisters dressed as Sweet Alice Sweet. Morgan Fairchild- still looking amazing, she actually looks younger than she really is- is chilling and seems to be having a great time, by far the best performance of the movie. That is saying a fair bit actually because the acting generally ranged from overwrought to bland, in short while to be expected it was not particularly great. You don't get to know the characters either, in some instances they get under your skin(the two bitching sisters) or are not on screen long enough to make an impression. The dialogue doesn't flow very well, makes little effort to develop or explain things, so a lot of American Horror House felt very undercooked from a writing standpoint, and the bitching was so overdone that you wanted the characters doing the bitching to shut up fast. Story-wise, there is no better news, some of it drags but other parts felt improvised and erratic. There are an almost complete lack of horror and mystery elements, which hurt the movie significantly. The horror was predictable and atmosphere-less(sure the death scenes were gruesome but those aside there's not much to the horror). And it would have helped if the ghosts were more believable, you don't even believe that they are ghosts but instead it's oddly reminiscent of the Chamber of Horrors section in Madame Tussaud's but much less scary. American Horror House doesn't do well as a mystery either, more suspense, atmosphere and less predictability will have helped it and also that it wasn't so obvious to us too early who the person behind the killings was. There are cheaper movies out there than American Horror House, but the choppy editing, too bright lighting(one external review likened it to Hallmark/Lifetime quality and that is apt here, often it doesn't feel like it's a movie about horror houses and ghosts), and old-school effects that sometimes were okay but looked at other times comparatively dated to the rest of the movie's look cannot be ignored here. All in all, you can do with worse but American Horror House is one of those once-seen, quickly disposable movies(personal opinion of course). 3/10 Bethany Cox

Well well well, I really think it's unfair that some reviews are so harsh on this one. It actually managed to impress me just a tad bit, sure, no originality here, a huge load of the usual horror scares, but still, they tried, they showed some good stuff, only if the ending would have been better. Just a little better!What I really don't get, is why oh why did they decide to show some scary parts during the day? I mean really, do they know the effect of daylight over a spooky scene? Kinda makes it dull, unnatural, childish! After that, the movie continues much better, we get to learn a little about the characters, which in my opinion, acted as they supposed to, some dumb, some cocky and others bossy, afterwards some half gore, half scares, dunno, I say overall, a 5 is a good grade for American Horror House.Yes! It could have been quite good, even with a much used plot, still, had potential, yes, it achieved some of it and yes, it ended as bad as it could have. But still, I've seen a lot more worse than this one right here, therefore, it's worth a look. No more than one tho, one, for the sake of curiosity. Yeah, that one, that killed the cat!

If you want a decent haunted house movie, got to the horror aisle of your local movie rental place; if you want a really bad haunted house movie lacking in logic and common sense, go to SyFy Channel. Once again, Hollywood pees in the face of the paranormal, swishes the water around and blames it on the dog. Again, what starts out as an interesting and promising premise very quickly goes down the toilet before the movie even starts. Not sure why the movie borrows its name from "An American Horror Story" on FX; the movie has nothing to do with the series. Set near the fictional East Coast college of La Roux University but filmed in Louisiana, it stars the vivaciously talented Alessandra Torresani of "Arrested Development" and "Grounded For Life" fame as an attractive busty college student whose sorority burns down, (Remember that, it's important later.) and her sorority has to move into a large familial manor house several blocks from the college owned by the virtually timeless Morgan Fairchild, who I seriously suspect has a portrait in her attic getting older for her as she stays young. Morgan plays the very mysterious and very stern landlord and housemother. However, hidden in the history of the house are some needlessly violent deaths and disappearances very conveniently lacking in human remains. The sorority is also hiding some very illegal hazing rituals that never get exposed orchestrated by the typical bitchy blonde stereotype. The scary clown hologram improbable as it is has practically stolen from the more superior movie "Hell Night," and like that movie, the body count is adequately and passably tied into the haunted house story. Torresani treats the material very seriously, and Fairchild relishes her character, virtually chewing up her scenes. The ghosts include a creepy girl with a nursery rhyme, an animated mascot costume and some characters in period costume, but they're soon joined by the murder victims at which point the movies turns into a farce of itself. The ghosts act more human than spiritual, pounding on doors and racing through the house like, well, college kids drunk on beer. Problem is, while the movie is suspenseful, it's not scary, and the script could have used a very badly needed re-write to make the overall film more believable. It's lacking in atmosphere and very little character development. In fact, the whole movie is riddled with plot holes big enough to drive a train through Sideways! The biggest plot hole is the fact that there should be umpteen bodies getting stacked up somewhere on the property, but the writers decided to get lazy and ignore resolving that problem. Truthfully, there is not much haunted house or ghostly about this movie; it's basically slasher and gore done paranormal style, and the climax ends very unsatisfactorily with a shock ending that is more of a whimper rather than a finale. Bottom line, SyFy needs to stop turning out these lousy movies and go back to airing the classic horror movies of yesterday.