Massacre Mansion aka Mansion of the Doomed concerns a surgeon who is determined to save his daughter’s eyesight lost in a car accident by transplanting someone else’s. He starts his experiments by inviting hapless victims to his mansion, drugging them and then performing the transplant. Things don’t go to plan and so the procedure has to be repeated several times. He soon amasses several eyeless victims in a cell in the mansion’s basement.

The obvious comparison to this Charles Band movie is Georges Franju’s masterpiece, Eyes Without a Face.

Massacre Mansion certainly doesn’t shy away from the gore and anything that involves eyes will always exploit the ‘ick’ factor. And this film certainly succeeds!

There’s also a very somber, downbeat tone to proceedings that gives the film a real sense of doomed seriousness that is great. There are several scenes of Lockhart’s surgeon’s internal tortured thought processes that the audience is made privy to which is interesting. This is a horror film for grown ups rather than vacuous teens.

There’s also real-life danger within the running time. The scene in which Lockhart promises to take a young girl to Disneyland when the audience knows his real intentions is hard to watch.

Another curve ball on the Video Nasties Section 3 list but a welcome one.

3 out of 5 stars