This 1988 Umberto Lenzi film concerns a young girl, Henrietta who is discovered by her father after she has murdered the family cat with a pair of scissors (!) He places her in the basement as a punishment. Whilst she is there with only her clown doll to keep her company, she hears a mysterious being upstairs who kills her parents. Twenty years later a CB radio message leads Paul Rogers and his friends to a deserted house which is the scene of the earlier crimes.

I remember seeing the video of Ghosthouse on the shelf of my local video store back in the day but never got round to seeing it. Until today that is. This isn’t prime Lenzi but rather than being some utter borefest, it’s still passable.

The kills are gory in the extreme which livens up proceedings. There are also some great twists. One example is the character who mistakes her friend for a ghoul and kills him by stabbing him in the back with a pair of sharpened garden shears before she realises her mistake.

But the kills are few and far between. The connecting scenes hold little interest and the dialogue seems like it was written by a 4-year-old. Before he meets his grisly fate, one character exclaims, ‘Please help me! HELPPP!’ Who in their right mind thought such a line was inspired or realistic?!

For Italian horror completelists only.

2 out of 5 stars