Tessa Wood | Through the Shattered Lens

As a horror fan, I always appreciate a good slasher film. As dark and as disturbing as they can be, they’ve also helped me to face down a lot of my own real-life fears. Watching a good slasher film can be cathartic. You may be scared when you’re watching and, if you’re like me, you’ll probably put your hands in front of your eyes during the more graphic kills but, when the end credits roll, you feel proud of yourself for having made it all the way through.

Again, that’s a good slasher film.

A bad slasher film can be, if you’ll excuse the expression, absolute terror.

Mouse of Horrors is not a good slasher film. It’s a film about Chloe (Natasha Tosini) and her friends who, after about 15 minutes of filler, finally go to the “fun fair.” It turns out that the fair is not very fun because it’s home to Dr. Rupert (Chris Lines) and his two sons, one of whom wears a mouse mask and another of whom wears a bear mask. They’re Mickey and Winnie, though they’re never explicitly called that over the course of the film. (The Mouse is played by Lewis Santer while the Bear is played by Stephen Staley). Dr. Rupert needs body parts so he sends his two sons out to collect them. As you may have guessed, this leads to a lot of scenes of spurting blood, hacked-off limbs, and screams. Mickey and Winnie do not speak but Dr. Rupert does. In fact, the old man will not shut up. Even if he wasn’t some old weirdo demanding that his sons hack up random people, Dr. Rupert would be an annoying old crank.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. The Mouse has potential and physically, Lewis Santer does a good job of portraying The Mouse’s jumpy style of movement. The Mouse mask is creepy, or at least it is at first. Eventually, I got bored with looking at the Mouse and, by the time the Bear started fighting with the Mouse, I no longer cared much about looking at either of them. Still, the killer is one of the most important parts of a slasher film and the Mouse had potential. The setting of the carnival also had potential, though most of it went unused.

The rest of the film, though …. ugh! Seriously, this was one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen, including one scene where a day for night scene went totally day for a few shots. The story dragged. (It takes 20 minutes to get them to the fun fair when the film really should have started with them already there.) I was never quite sure where the Mouse was in relation to anyone else in the film, negating any chance of generating suspense. Why was the town suddenly deserted? Why did everyone else at the fun fair suddenly disappear except for Chloe and her friends? Why did the Mouse go the local pub to kill a bartender instead of just staying at the fun fair? Does the Mouse walk around town with his mouse mask on? How does he get away with that? I’ve always been the first to say that enjoying a horror film requires a certain suspension of disbelief but the audience has every right to expect some sort of reward for playing along. This film doesn’t offer that reward.

Get ready for a lot more films like this. Copyrights are expiring and everyone wants to either make a film based on their childhood nightmares or get revenge on their English teacher for making them read a book in high school. This was not the first killer Mickey film and I doubt it will be the last.

Usually, I like to think that I can find something to love about any horror film but occasionally, I watch one that is so ineptly produced and so devoid of both horror and subtext that even I have to admit that it’s just not a very good film.

Case in point: The Last House On Cemetery Lane, a British horror film that I watched on Netflix last month. I actually had high hopes for the film, based on the title alone. The title, of course, reminded me of such classic horror thrillers as Last House On The Left, The House On The Edge of the Park, The House At The End of the Street, Last House On Dead End Street, and The House By The Cemetery. These are all films that have their strengths and weaknesses but the main thing that they have in common is that, years and, in some cases, decades after first being released, they still carry the power to either scare or disturb.

The Last House On Cemetery Lane does neither.

In fact, the title itself doesn’t really work because, as far as I can tell, the house is not actually located on cemetery lane. And it’s not exactly the last house on its street either. If anything, it appears to be the only house on its street. To be honest, I can’t even remember if there’s a cemetery located anywhere near the house and, quite frankly, I’m not going to force myself sit through this film for a second time just to find out.

The Last House On Cemetery Lane tells a familiar story. Screenwriter John (who is played by Lee Bane and, giving credit where credit is due, Bane actually gives a pretty good performance) needs to write a script and he needs to get away from the distractions of London. So, he rents a house in Wales. As he tours the house, his real estate agent (played by Tessa Wood) informs him that there’s a blind old woman named Agnes who lives up in the attic but he won’t have to worry about her because he’ll never see her.

Needless to say, John isn’t thrilled about that idea but, after a minute or two of considering it, he decides that he can handle living in a house with creepy old Agnes up in the attic.

Really?

Okay, John is a screenwriter so I’m going to assume that he’s seen a movie before. Doesn’t he know that any time you’re told that there’s a creepy old woman living in the attic that means that something bad is going to happen?

Anyway, John moves into the manor and then he spends a few hours wandering around the nearby village and walking on the beach. He finds a bottle washed up on the beach. In the bottle, there’s a piece of paper that reads “Message.” John laughs and throws the bottle back out into the ocean. And the movie goes on like that for a while. As a veteran movie watcher, I kept expecting the bottle to show back up but it never did. Apparently, that whole thing with the bottle was just included to pad out the film’s running time.

Speaking of running time, this film lasts 112 minutes and you will feel every single one of those 112 minutes. The Last House On Cemetery Lane is literally one of the slowest films that I have ever watched. The deliberate pace may have been intended to work as an atmosphere builder but no … this film has no atmosphere. It’s just kind of there.

Anyway, eventually, some things start to happen. It’s all the usual haunted house crap. Things go bump in the night. Music keeps playing. John meets a mysterious woman (Georgina Blackledge) who has secrets of her own. John runs around the house and demands to know who is haunting it. He talks to the mysterious woman. He knocks on Agnes’s door. Things go bump. Music plays. John talks to the mysterious woman. John knocks on Agnes’s door. John runs around the house and demands to know who is haunting it. He talks to the…

BLEH!

Okay, so you might be getting the idea that not much happens in Last House On Cemetery Lane. And you would be right. What kills the film is that it ultimately becomes so repetitive. There’s only so many times that you can listen to John bitch about living in a haunted house before you just say, “Then move, you jerk!” Ironically, the film probably would have worked just fine if it has just been a 15-minute short. But stretching material this thin out to nearly two hours — well, it just doesn’t work.

I love horror films but The Last House On Cemetery Lane is one to avoid.