Hammer House of Horror S01E05 - The House That Bled to Death

Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast. I'm following alone. In this season, we are delivering a post mortem on the nineteen eighty UK series Hammer House of Horror. Subletting a room in the northeast wing of the house. Is mister Mike White from the Projection Booth.

Look at this knife I found? Isn't it beautiful? A Kakori blade? Oh yes, I knew that that had to have a special name, and I kept thinking of that guy from Fortune Fire. It will cut.

I've gotten sucked into that show too many times, all right. But the show we're talking about tonight is The House that Bled to Death. This is season one, episode five, Series one episode five ared originally on October the eleventh, nineteen eighty. This one was written by David Lloyd, directed by Tom Clegg, starring Nicholas Ball and Rachel Davies, Brian Croucher and Emma Ridley. It is about a couple they get a house for a bargain, but they're unaware it's the site of a terrible murder and it might be possessed.

Is this the Amityville Horror? Yes, in more ways than one. How'd you like this one, Mike. I enjoyed this. I really liked where they were going with this.

I like this mysterious man who I guess was selling them the house. And well, we'll definitely talk about the end of this because semi confused, but not too bad. The quality of these just still continues to impress me. The film quality, the lighting, this one house that you talked about that we keep returning to. Everything looks so good, though I do have to say I was pretty freaked out by the little girl and her cat.

I kept thinking about that rabbit from a couple episodes ago, and I guess I was thinking of that for good reason. This is one of the more famous episodes, if not the most famous episode of Hammerhouse of Horrors, for one critical scene, the birthday party scene, which we're gonna get to. It is a literal blood bath in that beautiful three m blood that sort of day glow Crayola crayon George Romero special. It is definitely a parallel of the Amityville Horror. I enjoyed this, I gotta say, way more than the Amityville Horror.

The fact that these continue to look like movies, little movies, and I never feel like we're watching a TV series, and I can't say that about any of the other television series. It was always the other way around. Once in a while we'd go, Wow, that felt like a little movie, didn't it, as opposed to Hey, we're down on the sound stage in Burbank or wherever the hell. I'd like to try some Cadbury chocolate straight out of a tin, but I do not want poison added with it. Though I did like that I had the actual like cow being on there, and I know Cadbury is a very big brand over in the UK, and so yeah, I was pretty happy about that.

But I was surprised when the old lady started coffin her life away and yeah, great cold open, What a nice effective cold open. And I will be honest, I've never actually seen the Amityville Horror. I think it was too adult for me when it was out originally, what was that like, seventy. Eight, eight seventy nineteen seventy eight, Yeah. Okay, yeah, so I would have been six when it came out, And then when it showed on TV, I think I remember a room that was filled with flies and that was enough.

I didn't need to see anything more. I was too scared. That was Ron Steiger being told to get out of that house. Did you ever see the In Search of starring Leonard Namoy's take on the Amityville Horror. Oh, I'm sure I did, and I have recently downloaded every episode of that show just because it is so fricking creepy and so effective.

But the version I downloaded doesn't have that awesome opening, which is like sets the mood so much. Okay, you and I are in possession of the same collection. However, I do have a couple of episodes with the original opening, and occasionally I'll just throw that on just to hear the sound. Because they've repackaged that show with the Discovery Channel, I think or something, and they slapped a whole new opening onto it, and then they remade it with the other spot oof. Anyway, the Amityville Horror, when you get to it is enjoy.

It scared the fuck out of me when I was a kid, and. I hear Amityville two is quite a special little movie as well. It's an interesting flick. Yeah young right, Oh, yes, And. I don't remember who else, but whenever I talk with Diane Franklin, she's always itching to talk about that movie, and I'm like, sorry, Diane, I haven't seen it.

That was a Yeah, that was a big scary one. At the time. It all gets weird and much more sort of hard to reconcile the fictionalization of the actual murders in that case. Yeah, and that's that those Charlatan's right, the two that are in those conjuring movies. Oh yeah, they they showed up at the tail end of that the Warrens warrants.

But it was now that I remember. It's the Dafayo case. Is the young man who murdered his family with a shotgun and then blamed it on demons and then retracted that later. And then the Lutz family took over that house, and then they got underwater financially, and this presented a great story, and they conspired with their author of their of the book. See that the author of that book sued the Warrens.

Is what eventually happened, you know, because they were using elements from his story. And I don't know, it's it's all very convoluted as as is this Actually, this isn't convoluted at all. This is a very straight ahead story. Family moves in Lovely Family. I like what I particularly like in these episodes given that they don't have to rush with the twenty two minutes in between soapbads like every other series.

We can just have a scene getting to know the family for ten seconds or a minute or so and actually get to like people. And they consistently do that here. I've yet to just out and out dislike a protagonist unless that's their intent here, and I like this little family. I was rooting for them. And then when is the story with the neighbors, because it feels like the neighbors like strange things start happening.

When when the neighbor lady comes over and it almost feels like she's the center of the mystery for a little. While, it does, And that kept me guessing because as much as I had remembered this episode, I had only remembered the one fucking bloodbat scene honestly, so I too was like, wait, what's happening here? Like is the house just possessed? You know? Let me before we get there.

I just want to say, one thing that drives me crazy in any ghost story, and we've seen a lot of them, is the immediate gas lighting when something completely crazily fantastical has happened, and a door closing on its own and it's stuck, and it's a house you're not familiar with and trying to get it open. That in and of itself isn't that bad. But if your child is also screaming simultaneously about some weird event and your wife is freaking out that the gas won't shut off, I don't know. It was gas lighting in the face of a gas leak. It was really odd And anyway, that drives me crazy.

And they spend a little too long with them with him doing that. I guess it pays off in the end, but it was making me grind my teeth for at least twenty minutes. Yeah. Yeah, it's like those people from Poltergeist. It's like, you should have gotten that hotel room a lot sooner.

But you know, and I understand, you know, housing is a problem and everything, but yeah, if I, I mean even just I would come in and probably clean up the house a lot more before I just simply move in, because just that smudge mark where those blades were, I'm like, no, I really wouldn't want that in my kitchen, thank you very much. And how weird is it to keep those blades in the kitchen just prominently out there? Like, was there a story behind that? Did you capture those off of some guys in the Boer War or something? Are we talking about the original couple who had them just hanging there?

Yeah, we never really got into it, like I expected at some point we were going to get some bullshit mythology or yes, like he had spent some time in Afghanistan or Nepal. That is a Nepalese army knife and you know, like it is it connected to some curse or something like that. Nope, it's just a crazy old man who poisoned his wife and then chopped her to pieces with those knives and just liked them and kept them prominently displayed. You know what's crazy. When I was watching the episode for the first time, a lot of the motivations of the characters, I called into questions and got upset about knowing the ending.

I have to like rethink that, and that's a neat trick. Yeah, no, it is. It's very nice and like they give you a couple of red herrings. You know, it's about the neighbor lady, but there is also her husband who is watching the wife of the our main couple undress and he's talking about like, oh, it's like watching a porno film, and I'm just like, oh, what a disgusting guy this is. But he ends up being a very nice person.

He does, but like he and the wife are into that. You know, it's just like a and yeah, they are kind of red herrings. But it does seem coincidental that every time the neighbor lady comes around, something happens, which made me think, even if it's not a supernatural thing, like, is it is she hoaxing them for some reason? Yeah? And there they don't immediately tell them that, you know, this is a murder house you're in, right, Like this is why even after all the crazy shit's going on, like it's time to spill the beans on Murderville, right.

Yeah, they're trying to be nice about it. And it feels like the guy that sold them to house is like, uh, yeah, this is a very special place. And I'm like, okay, yeah, all right, when is he going to come clean or what is his connection with this? Was he, you know, the son of this old couple or how does this come about? Yeah?

I like that they are giving us all of these different things to chase down, and never really until the end, giving us a satisfactory answer. At one point, I thought, maybe it is just the wife, you know, like it does only seem to happen when she's around, But then then it's happening around the daughter as well. And then of course that there's the goddamn cat. Oooh not cool, not cool? No, no, at least that bake cat looks really bad, So it's very easy to divorce yourself from that being a real cat that happened to get its neck sliced by the window.

Oh yeah, it's a broken pane of glasses. If the cat knocked the pain out an attempt to get in and in doing so cut its own swort, it's really horrific. Turns out to be the undoing of our protagonist here. Did you notice that everyone had the odd habit of running their finger along the blade for no reason? Yeah?

Yeah, and that blade looks really shiny, like it's so ready to cut. I could not figure that out. Like, yeah, well, and then when she finds one in that drawer and then like throws it down to her husband and it just goes bouncing off of those stairs. It's like, what are you trying to do? You don't just throw a knife at somebody.

Oh my god. Oh, by the way, that's so okay that you know, all this bullshit is occurring. And then when the when the cat does die, when they discover the cat, the neighbor's reaction is to go to cover it up. So she goes into the kitchen, just grabs the tablecloth off of the table, pulls everything to the floor, and goes it covers it up, Like, oh my god, that's I don't know. I just thought that was hilarious.

And then the little girls freak out when she sees the dead trying to bury the cat. I was just like, wow, that's in sense. I mean, I guess you are traumatized, little girl. And oh yeah, and the just the dad out there was like slowly digging up the grave. It was just so sort of haunting.

Oh, the car of Up Killer. That was the official name of our of our the the guy at the opening, the old man when they find the newspaper. That's what they've called them, The the carve up Killer. We get we get a later one. I forget what that one was.

Our main guy who kept reminding me of David Hemmings, like, this is the first episode where I'm not immediately able to latch onto at least one of the actors and be like, oh, I know that person from something else. This one, for sure, I'm just like, I don't know any of these actors. I mean, they're all great, but none of them I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember that guy from an episode of Doctor Who or something. Well, speak of the Devil. Rachel Davies is female lead here.

In fact, did quite a few Doctor Who's Oh funny, yeah, and including audio books and and she's still active today, So that's actually where I know her from, because she did the Doctor Who run around the same. Time, was this the Tom Baker Doctor Who? Yes, this was this is still a Doctor Who number four. In our next episode, we're gonna get another Doctor Who. Alum, she's actually a little more famous for her appearances on the show.

Oh you know what they had in this that immediately brought me back to nineteen eighty was a monofilament foam ball Ostrich, a little marionette. Those seemed to be everywhere all of a sudden in the mid to late seventies. Did you have one of those. I remember seeing those many a street fair, especially the ones that they would hook up the strings and then you could, yeah, treat it like a marionette. It's kind of like those.

Did you ever have one of those Christmas trees, the ceramic Christmas tree with the little plastic lights that you could put in it? Oh? Yeah, and they would pop out absolutely. All the time. Yeah.

The trick with that, get a lighter like the bottom of it melted a little bit and sticking in there. It'll never come out again. And you will also decrease the value of that item immediately. Oh I know when I take it to Antiqu's roadshow and they go, actually, we have a whole warehouse filled with those. It's true, there's so goddamn any of them.

This episode could have been just about keeping secrets. Everyone is just constantly don't tell Daddy about this? Will you don't tell her? Don't tell him, don't I thought forever we were getting a supernatural episode. Man, this one pulled the rug out from under me, and I did start ascribing all of these potential traits and motivations for the possession to be occurring.

But man, oh man, they fucking fooled me. Oh yeah, no, me too. And the thing is, when it comes to a twist like that, so many times you're just like, really, oh, come on, or yeah, of course I saw that coming from a mile away. This was one of the most delightful twists that I've ever seen. And to go to that blood scene that you're talking about, I mean I could kind of see that one coming from a mile away, especially with the end of the episode, but I was just still.

It was so effective and just all those little kids screaming. What a perfect thing to do to ruin that birthday party. Yeah, and not only that, when you think about it now, this was a quote unquote late night show on when it was playing in the UK, so it was most likely coming on at ten o'clock. Nevertheless, this is a television series in nineteen eight. I don't think.

I don't recall this getting on the air here. It's so transgressive now to do that like that would be a problem, I think. Yeah, yeah, the last time I saw something like that, it was a rave and Tracy Lords was there. Yeah, the DJ with the with the greatest insurance coverage of all time, DJ Bloodbath back there, yeap. Instead of it being the smoke coming up.

It's just you know, all the thing and all the blood comes out. I love it, all of the blood. And yeah, when we get to our end here I was I felt ropidoped, Like I'm like, wait, where are they where? They're suddenly palm trees and she's in a bikini for some way. Who so you know they have to flee the house, which they do, and then this real estate agent who's been a real creeper the entire episode bully to this show for keeping him just creepy enough that I wasn't immediately like, oh, this is a conspiracy between husband and and real estate guy, because that's what the first thing you would have thought of if this was a Tales from the Crypt or a night Gallery.

For a while there there was some line that he gives and I was like, is this a bet? Is there like a prize that gets given if you can stay in this house for a week? Like I thought it was going to be that twist for a little bet. Could have been that Leslie Nielsen special. Yeah, yeah, but what we end up getting is so much fucking better.

It's they they've sold the fucking he They've sold the rights to this story to that guy who's an author who's written a tell all book like The Amityville Horror, and now he's just sold the film rights and they're gonna have what looked like a couple hundred thousand dollars to spend in their new California home that they're living in, and they're just living the high life. And for a moment, I'm like, yeah, all right, that's fine. Everyone can get away with that. That's cool. But then I forgot about mister Whiskers.

Revenge for mister Whiskers. Yeah, the older Sophia good casting, because she really looked like the younger girl. She's there reading aj Powers's book, The House That Bled to Death, So we're inside of you. Like ghost stories, you're in one, we're now inside of the book that she's reading. And then yeah, I guess she gets inspired and just happens to have one of those knives again.

So she knows it's a hoax. She knows the way the box of rules that the dad used for this elaborate prank is and now she's just realized they killed my cat as part of this fucking hoax. They gotta die right on. I yeah, I'm that was so nice that she is the one that gives them their come upance because they don't serve to live basically. And I mean now she's carrying on the violence and everything, but I hope she can get away with it.

Do you know what I love? Not you? I love your money? Oh you go bigger die exactly. Yeah, these two end up being the most despicable villains that I've seen in this series so far, And I'm like, wow, I mean even uh you know, Marcus Prodi had his whole like uh yeah, I'm just I'm having the same dream.

Yeah, it's fine that I murder my wife and this one they're just yeah, they just deserve it so much. Like now, a serious question, what is going on with nurse outfits in England in nineteen eighty Why does it feel like it's eighteen seventy nine? The Jetty Agatter special. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what it is, but I can see why a lot of guys had fetishes for that outfit. Well yeah, I mean the UK version certainly.

Listen, my mother's a nurse, My grandmother was a nurse, so they when I was a kid were still wearing the traditional whites and the little cap and you know, the big white shoes and everything, and even then it felt anachronistic, but a little more, you know, it didn't feel like they walked off of a Civil War battlefield like they're doing here in England. Jesus correct. Yes, yeah, they definitely feel like they're stuck in the crimea in war era. Yes. Also, when the family ends up fleeing, they have this wind up penguin toy and it's spattered with blood and it's slowly winding down, and it was just a beautiful shot.

I just wanted to point that out. A lot of good imagery in this. I mean, even when she's getting the stuff out of the suitcase and she's got the glass case and opens that up and just like kind of lovingly touches these classes. I'm just like, these are really nice, very well composed and just very striking. Like you said, it doesn't feel rushed, and I definitely did not feel bored.

No, not at all. That's something we cannot accuse this series of at all. We're nearly halfway through Fingers Crossed. Yeah, Well, on the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we're going to take a look at the Hammer House of Horrors, episode number six. That's Charlie Boy till then.

Where can people find you when they're on the prowl Mike White. When they're prowling around and hopefully not killing mister Whiskers. You can find me over at Projection Booth podcast dot com. Or as a proud member of the Weirdingway media group, you can find me at Weirdowaymedia dot com where all the stuff that we do is available. How about you find them alone?

Well as for me, you're listening to the show I do. We're on twice a week. We also have a Patreon channel where everything comes out ridiculously early, so head over there. That is patreon dot com slash follom alone. Until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight street streets