House 4 full of crap
Terrible Film--why must there
always be Midgets?
- haiku that hurts me more than you.
There are a lot of movies out there. A lucky (or not-so lucky) few get to have sequels. Now, you have to approach sequels the right way. Most of them weren't really in mind when the original was made, and usually lack the budget/talent/whatever that made the first really a success. This "net loss" or whatever continues the more sequels that are made. The further you get away from the original, the worse the film is. There are a few exceptions to this rule; House 4 is NOT one of them. I've been eyeing some of the under-rated series out there for a while, wondering which one to dive into. Why ever did I choose House 4? What made this film worth watching? Not the plot, I assure you. While walking through the plot as we trudge through a movie is generally a good way to organize one of these reviews, I find it easier to just get it out of the way and show you why I have this film reserved under the "torture" section of my film library.
The Plot: "An old house is built on top of a magic spring. Evil corporate-types kill the owner (Dad), forcing him to haunt the house and scare the bejesus out of his still-living wife and child. Evil loses, good wins." Doesn't really sound that enthralling, does it? It's not. It's painful. I'll show you how....
Let's
introduce the forces of evil. There's the required "Mr. Big"...you
know the type. The big, fat, cigar-smoking evil man with lots of money
and lots of stupid goons. Of course, Mr. Big in this film is played by
none other than ANOTHER SCARY
MIDGET!
By the way, just for the two-year-olds reading this article, Mr. Big is
funny because he's a midget...get it? He's not big at all.
Ahahahaahahaahaahah. :sigh: So the evil midget wants to buy the Cobb
house (the family from the Plot) and use it as a place to bury illegal toxic
waste. He motivates his men to attack the family. But how does
the he do this? By making his henchmen swallow a pint of his own phlegm.
I'm not kidding. He starts coughing, drains his neck of a milky substance
and then forces it down his chief Goon's throat. Ew.
Oh..just so you know, Mr. Big's "chief
goon that chugs the phlegm" is Roger, the brother of the dead
father
(because he killed him, blah blah blah plot terrible blah, etc). This
becomes important once the "Father's spirit" starts trying to send messages
to his wife, warning her of danger. What does Daddy's spirit decide to
do? He keeps sending her dreams of Roger in Drag...as an evil nurse
cutting off his life-support in the hospital. So, she's lost her
husband and now she's dreaming of his brother in dresses. I'm not
quite sure what stage of grief that is. The director of House 4
obviously meant t
his
to be frightening, as if the nurse suddenly transformed from a woman to evil
Roger. Unfortunately, Roger seems to be FAR TOO HAPPY to be in women's
clothes...or maybe I'm just misreading his attempt at an "evil" expression.
Of course he reinforces his masculinity by having a secret lair filled with
pornography and enough privacy to beat his goons with an INFLATABLE SEX
DOLL. (This scene is not the arousing type of "beaten by Inflatable
Sex Doll" scene..it's more like "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, Why the
Hell are there Inflatable Sex Dolls everywhere?!!!!" kind of scene.)
God, this film is great. Now, I need to mention that Roger's henchmen
are really, really stupid. Like, mutter to themselves and offer the
only comic relief of this movie...they're that kind of stupid. Every
evil organization has guys like this
.
Usually they're the ones that have to guard the prisoner, or capture the
small child that should pose "no difficulty" in capturing. Think Home
Alone and you know what caliber of villains we're talking about. It's
got
to be some sort of equal opportunity kind of thing. "Are all my
frickin' evil henchmen retarded?" The answer: Only the minimum
number required by law. The "good guys" of this film aren't
particularly strong or anything...in fact, their greatest strength is in
choosing very dumb enemies, such as transvestite Roger and his moronic
cronies. Speaking of stupidity, one of Roger's plans involves sending
his goons in with Halloween masks on to scare the family with baseball bats.
Of course, they pretend to be evil ghosts...with baseball bats. They
end up being chased out of the house by a novelty lamp that turns into a
dog. A rottweiler with a frilly lamp on its head is how the girl's
ghostly father helps his daughter. Wow. I love this movie. But
wait....there's more.
Ah.
The Shower scene. One of the staples of a good-bad horror movie.
Sure, we get gratuitous breast scrubbing; it's not a real shower scene
without it. Here's Mom, finally relaxing, thi
nking
she's over the death of her husband. Little does she know that he's become a
ghost, sworn to protect the house. While it's not mentioned in the
Plot (hahaaha), I also think his job is to scare the crap out of anyone in
the house, as he terrorizes his wife...a lot. Sure he saves the day,
sending dreams of cross-dressing in-laws, hallucinations, and lamp-wearing
dogs, but why the hell does he turn his wife's shower water into blood?
Arguably, this only makes the shower scene better, as we get the bloody
gratuitous breast scrubbing. This reminds me. Have you ever thought
about what you would put in your house if money wasn't an issue at all?
I would so spring for the deluxe "shower that can spray blood"
package. Of course, my house would really just be a revamped version
of "Daddy's" house from Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs.
I mean, who wouldn't want to have spastic kids living in your crawlspace?
I really should review that film sometime....but not now. Now it's time for
the infamous "Pizza Guy" sequence.
The best scene of the entire movie.
The doorbell rings. Suddenly, out of nowhere a guy leaps into the
house and starts dancing and singing at the top of his lungs:
"I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, because I keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget your favorite Pizza Man! Yeah!"
Now, I've only given you the abridged
version because I have no desire to type the other three verses our
"favorite pizza guy" sings...suffice to say he sings for a long time.
The worst part? The tune is very very catchy. As in, I caught my
self whistling the Pizza Guy song for the next two weeks after watching this
movie. Casey's Top 40: "Coming in at number 12, i
t's
Pizza Guy moving up a notch." Watch this movie and TRY to get this
song out of your head. You'll try and you'll fail. The movie has
planted it's seed in you. Soon you will give birth...to song. :whew:
Let's get back to the actual movie for just a second. Look at the
daughter in the picture on the right. That's her reaction to the Pizza
Guy song. Now she's supposed to be 16 or so. How many teenagers
do you know that would get so horrifically happy when their pizza man breaks
into a really horrible song? Home schooling can be really detrimental,
I tell you. She acts like she's three years old, clapping her hands
and laughing like a hyena. I have a theory that might explain her
"youthful" response to the Pizza man. Technically, she's looking at
the only potential love interest that's in the film. Sure, he takes
his $12.48 and goes on his merry way, but at least he gave her hope in her
days of puberty. I mean, think about it, if your world was filled with
phlegm-spewing midget crime lords, cross-dressing uncles, and chubby moronic
goons in animal masks, wouldn't you be a little excited to see a normal man
walk into your life? Sure, he's singing and dancing and dressed like
Orville Redenbacker...but he's normal by comparison.
Wait. You thought THAT was the "Pizza Guy scene?" Oh no. There's more.
Apparently,
the Pizza Guy song is so catchy that the pizza itself is singing it.
Thusly, the "Pizza Guy" scene ends with Mom fighting a pizza. I'm not
sure what the hell the "spirit of her Husband" is trying to tell her here.
One interesting thing is that the "Human Pizza" is played by one Kane
Hodder. Who's that you might ask? Kane Hodder is the man behind
the mask....He played Jason Vorhees in what I like to think of as the Best
of the Friday the 13th movies...the silly/cool/horrible ones. (Just
for the record those are: Number 7: Jason versus Carrie/Girl with psychic
powers, Number 8: Jason takes Manhattan, Jason goes to Hell and Jason X:
Robo-Jason in Space) Sure, he's not the best actor, and all he does in this
movie is slap some pepperoni on his face and sing the Pizza Guy song...but I
like knowing that's Jason under that two topping extra cheese. Random
Trivia facts are fun, right? Anyway, Mom somehow misunderstands
her dead husband's message of sending her a killer pizza and ends up shoving
the creature into the garbage disposal.
Hell, I misunderstood most of what this movie was trying to say and I ended up shoving it into the garbage disposal. Wait. Does that mean I actually understood the film's message? I'm so confused.
All I know is that I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, because I keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold..I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, because I Kill me keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget your favorite Pizza Man! Yeah! because I keep Kill me! Kill me I can't get the song out of my head. SOmeone call the doctor! it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, because I keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget your favorite Pizza Man! Yeah!your favorite Pizza Man! Yeah! .Next time you want your Kill me pizza in a paaaaaaaan....I'm your Pizza man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never late our pizza's never cold, I'm your Pizza Kill me man, I'm your Pizza man, and I am everybody's favorite pizza guy...our pizza's never Kill me late our pizza's cut out my tongue, cut out my tongue!!! never cold, because I keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget your favorite Pizza Man! Yeah!because I keep it warmed up on my engine man-a-fold...Next time you want your pizza in a paaaaaaaan.....Don't forget your favorite Pizza Man!
Yeah!
copyright 2004 Jared, except for stolen stuff, etc