Halloween '26: Group Photo #3

 It’s the third day of October, the rain finally stopped, and I get to mow… let’s see what on the Holiday Horror Shelf!

    From left to right:

    From the Cauldron Films’ website: "Enter the Houses of Doom… a 4 film horror series that was made for Italian Italian television in 1989, but things didn’t quite turn out “safe for TV” when producers enlisted cinematic madmen Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi to direct! Far too gory and violent for television and essentially shelved until home video many years later…” I bought this set on preorder, and it came with that keychain in the middle. of the shelf I still haven’t found a good use for it.

    The House on the Edge of the Park was one in a set of three "Psycho Killer" DVDs, and that’s the only reason I own it. Not recommended. 

    House by the Cemetery is also by Lucio Fulci and was released in 1981. When the DVD first came out I found a copy at Best Buy that was priced $0.00. I pointed this out a sales clerk who was walking by. He took the DVD and said, “I’ll be right back.” He returned ten minutes later with a slim camera case. He handed it to me and said, “I can’t sell you a free DVD, but my manager said you can have this instead.” I tried to explain that I only wanted to know what the real price was, but he just walked away leaving me holding the bag. Weird. I left the camera case on a checkout counter when I left the left the store. 

    House of Exorcism (1975) is what you get when you take a vastly superior film by Mario Bava called Lisa and the Devil (1973), remove 35 scenes, and add a bunch of pea soup vomit to capitalize on the success of The Exorcist in the US. It bombed. Still, I’d like to meet the person who donated this to Goodwill. Also, you can see House of Exorcism featured on a theater marquee in Wood Allen’s Annie Hall. 

    1976’s The House with the Laughing Windows is like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like…

    I like how you can see the model on the FireHouse LP peeking between the movies like she’s the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart.” I got this LP in a five record mystery bundle from Real Gone Music. I’m a sucker for grab bags. “Love of Lifetime” is the band's biggest hit from this album, but I’ll going with “Home is Where the Heart Is” for today’s post. It mostly fits the theme.

    Today’s theme: Italian architecture.