Bloodbath at the House of Death

Introduction

Kenny Everett was one of the big TV personalities of the 1980s with his popular series The Kenny Everett Video Show, The Kenny Everett Video Cassette and The Kenny Everett Television Show.

In 1984 he teamed up with two of his writers, Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron, who also directed, to make Bloodbath at the House of Death - a spoof of the Hammer Horror films, starring Pamela Stephenson, Vincent Price, Gareth Hunt and Cleo Rocos.

A team of 'scientists' go to a mansion, the scene of a series of gruesome murders 9 years previously, to investigate local claims that it is haunted, but Vincent Price, playing the 700 year old 'Sinister Man', is determined to stop them.

Video

Fair enough quality, especially considering the poor production values and the capabilities of special effects at the time.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 is badly mixed, with dialogue coming from the front surrounds, rather than the centre speaker - I stuck with the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, which is perfectly fine.

Extra Features

Running the Bloodbath is a 22 minute featurette/retrospective comprising interviews with Kenny Everett from 1983 and the two executive producers, interspersed with clips from the film and other Kenny Everett projects.

Gallery - uninspiring promotional materials and photos, running for about 2 mins.

The Script - an Adobe PDF of the script is included in a folder on the DVD.

Also Available - covers of other Nucleus titles.

UK and US Trailers are also included.

Conclusion

I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with Kenny Everett's work - he was at his most popular when I was a toddler! This was supposed to be a camp send-up of the Hammer horror films, some of which were already camp enough in their own right.

Bloodbath at the House of Death is a watchable, occasionally funny and extremely daft spoof horror film, but these have been done better - for example Carry On Screaming, Dracula: Dead and Loving It and Scary Movie.

It's not great, but fans of Kenny Everett will welcome its release on DVD, while the rest of us will just ignore it.