So we're watching this completely rudimentary
haunted house thriller 'The Haunting of Whaley House' from our
friends at The Asylum… even though we might to stop calling
them 'our friends' since they have yet to acknowledge us
despite the mad love we've been tossing their way for the
better part of a decade… but whining aside we're watching the
movie and the final credits roll and we are blessed with one
of the more awesome closing credits songs ever in Viqui
Denman's 'Giving up the Ghost'. If you want to feel the
1980's then you need to feel 'Giving up the Ghost'.
Rockwell just called and he wants his song back.
Kajagoogoo just texted and wants to know how they can get in
on some of that action. Stacey Q just sent a telegram…
okay, we'll stop. Anyway, 'The Haunting of Whaley House'
was threatening to put to me sleep but got incrementally more
interesting as it went on and managed to at least keep me
awake. Faint praise perhaps, but there it is.
Whaley House is the most haunted house in all the world, and
if you have the most haunted house in all the world then let's
make some loot off of it and give guided tours. Today's
guided tour is being handled by Penny the Skeptic (Stephanie
Greco) who has observed one of her customers tripping out as
she is seeing a lot of ghostly stuff on this particular day,
even though no one else is, followed by her completely
convulsing and foaming at the mouth. Whaley House done
got her. According to Penny's boss Bethany (Lynn Lowry)
this kind of thing happens all the time, and then she gives
Penny the Gremlin Rules, adjusted for ghosts, with the only
one I can remember is don't go in the house at night.
Guess what? Penny, on the
urgings of her asshole friend Craig (Graham Denman) is going
to take her friends to the Whaley House at night. Also
along will be Penny's boyfriend Jake (Alex Arleo), Penny's
scaredy but hot BFF Giselle (Carolina Groppa),
Craig's girl Vanessa (Arielle Brachfield) and
Craig's African American cousin Ray (Jason Owsley) who also is
an amateur ghost hunter and as has all kinds of ghost hunting
gear. As a surprise Ray managed to get noted psychic
Keith Drummond (Howard McNair) to come along so he can channel
some evil spirits and stuff.
They are at the house, things are going bump in the dark,
Giselle is freaking out and Keith Drummond is sensing
evil. Outside the house stuff is also happening, like
the girl who was foaming at the mouth showing up or the
handyman bringing his date around. She showed us her
tits. In the long sordid history of gratuitous nudity,
this scene is a sad candidate for the most gratuitous of them
all.
So what do these ghosts want? I'm not completely sure,
despite the dulcet British vocal tones of Keith Drummond
verbosely explaining next to nothing, but I know it has
something to do with the inevitable deaths of annoying young
adults who aren't very bright. Roll credits and
prepare for 'Giving up the Ghost'.
I gotta say that with the Whaley's, writer and director Jose
Pendes has written a set of the most wildly inconsistent
ghosts ever committed to digital video. There was really
no rhyme or reason why these ghosts did anything that they
did, but I guess they are ghosts, which is inherently
improbable, so I imagine they have the right to be wildly
inconsistent. Like why kill the Handyman? Truth be
told he's helping Whaley house by fixing it up and
stuff. Why torture the chick at the tour and not anybody
else? Why is Whaley killing anybody for that matter,
since as far as I could tell nobody did anything to the
dude. I could also question the reasoning for going into
a known haunted house in the first place, recognizing that we
are breaking the law, but then if it wasn't for stupid young
adults we wouldn't have a horror movie genre.
That being said, while we question the narrative which is
flawed at best, the imagery is solid and after a coma inducing
slow start things did pick up considerably after the
inconsistent ghosts finally got around to terrorizing annoying
young adults. I liked the look of the ghosts, one of
young adults turned into a freaky spectre which was a little
jarring, helped by the fact that the actor looks pretty freaky
to begin with, there were a couple of a decent jump scares in
the movie for those who aren't immune to that kind of thing,
as I have unfortunately become over the years, and I also like
the goo monster that was roaming around terrorizing folks…
though again I'm not completely sure why it was doing this
even though I think Keith Drummond verbosely told why it was.
The acting…well… it was what it was. A phrase that
captures everything while saying nothing and after today I
won't use it anymore, but I don't want to pick on our young
actors who failed to hold my interest when they weren't dying
horribly, but as they started to suffer their performances
became more believable. I did enjoy the one character's
ill-advised defiant stand against the ghosts, because anytime
you tell a ghost to perform fellatio on you, in a far less
classy way than I just put it, that's good stuff. And
Howard McNair proves once again that almost anything said with
a regal British accent sounds legitimate, even if what's being
said is complete nonsense.
As we've said many times before, if you don't watch these
types of low budget movies very often, it's almost guaranteed
that you will despise this movie as it does come up short in a
number of significant areas that many often take for granted,
but if you are a veteran of this kind of stuff, like we are…
then you still might despise this movie. But you
will extract the goodness and run with it.
