Adapted from the 1913 novel and play Seven Keys to Baldpate, Peter Walker’s 1983 haunted house chiller has a cast as venerable as the source material. Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and John Carradine all feature as the inhabitants of the titular house, with Desi Arnaz Jr as the blocked writer who is dared by his publisher (Richard Todd) to stay the night in a bid to get his creative juice flowing. Long patches of near black screen follow, but once the cast are fully assembled, House of The Long Shadows has a complex and ingenious storyline that’s well worth trying to follow; if the twist ending is a cheat, it’s a nicely played one that allows the famous performers a post-modern curtain call.
Comments
Loading…