The House of the Long Shadows (1983)

Maybe I'm just not as much of an obscure film buff as I like to think I am, but, especially because of the circles I run in, once in a while I still stumble across information about some buried cinematic treasure I didn't even know existed. However, I've made very few miraculous discoveries that compare to The House of the Long Shadows, which happens to have Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Carradine, and Vincent Price, all in the same film. Now before this movie was released a couple of these beloved horror icons had appeared together before multiple times, but this truly was the first time all four would be on the same bill. Better yet, judging from the plot summary, it seemed like they would actually play characters that interact with each other for more than a couple of minutes (which was a more common problem for films promising Price, Cushing, and/or Lee co-starring than you might think; dare I mention Scream and Scream Again?). My first thought when I heard about it was excitement, anticipation, even awe. Unfortunately, being a much scarred and embittered veteran of film, my second thought was, "Oh God, there's probably at least several reasons why I haven't heard about it." In fact, even before I watched it, I could find two: it was produced by Golan-Globus, and it starred Desi Arnaz, Jr., the guy famous just for being Lucille Ball's son.

It is true enough that it was in the tradition of the horror studios most associated with the Big Four, like Amicus and AIG, to have bland leading men, so maybe horror fans can just take it in stride as a faithful homage. Nonetheless Desi Arnaz, whose performance is probably best described as aggressively mediocre, still has a special way of sucking just a little of the fun out of any given scene. I'm really not sure why, since - and maybe this just speaks of the caliber of the films I usually watch and review - I wouldn't claim that Desi Arnaz is a particularly bad actor. It's just that he seems to have two chief modes in this film: some emotion that's vaguely recognizable as wry amusement mixed with arrogance and mild irritation.

Desi Arnaz, or maybe I should refer to him as that guy who is Lucille Ball's son, plays Kenneth Magee, a top-tier novelist who looks down on "Wuthering Heights"-esque Gothic horror. In fact, he makes a hefty bet with his editor Sam (Richard Todd) that he'll be able to churn out a bona fide Gothic novel in one weekend. To make sure Kenneth has the right atmosphere for his writing marathon, Sam offers to let him stay at a remote and deserted Welsh manor owned by his friend. Agreeing enthusiastically, Kenneth sets himself up with nothing but a candle and a typewriter. Better yet, Sam wins a date with Sam's assistant, Mary (Julie Peasgood), who had been sent to try to scare Kenneth as a prank. Unfortunately, things get weird when Sam and Mary encounter two housekeepers (John Carradine and Sheila Keith), whom Mary swears aren't supposed to be there and aren't part of Sam's prank. Even stranger, others start to trickle into the mansion: Lionel (Vincent Price), Sebastian (Peter Cushing), and Corrigan (Christopher Lee). Soon enough Kenneth finds himself the unwilling witness to an ugly and decades-old family drama, which should give him ample inspiration if he survives...

As you might have guessed, The House of the Long Shadows is deliberately written as a pastiche of the sorts of films that made our fab four famous in the first place. And to its credit The House of the Long Shadows is the best kind of genre homage/parody: subtle, respectful, and unclogged with the sort of ironic distance all us horror fans have been conditioned to live with for years now. It's not really the sort of horror film that really gets made in our post-Scream era (the closest twenty-first century equivalent I can think of is Elvira's Haunted Hills), and that gives The House of the Long Shadows more of a nostalgic feel than you might expect. Fans might be disappointed that the film isn't a genuine horror-fest, but being what it is it actually does feel like a genuine tribute rather than an exploitation of four legendary actors or a cynical mockery of genre cinema.

That said, the film has a few core - and really perplexing - flaws. While Christopher Lee and Vincent Price both play roles intended to echo the sort of work they're best known for (Vincent Price's melodramatic monologues in the style of his time with AIP really do sell the entire movie for me), John Carradine does little more than fill space, perhaps a necessity given the actor's advanced age at the time the film was directed. However, there's no excuse for the misuse of Peter Cushing, who plays a milquetoast who definitely isn't in the spirit of his Dr. Frankenstein. That's not to say that the character is badly written or that Cushing doesn't give the part his all, but it is jarring. Finally, at the risk of giving anything away, the inevitable twists don't really make much sense - and how does someone write even a rough draft of an entire novel in 48 hours?

In the end, The House of the Long Shadows was better than I expected, but not what I hoped for. At the least, though, the filmmakers understood the appeal of these four icons and the sub-genres they worked in. Really, that's the most any fan can ask for.