Dead Dudes in the House (1989)

"The old lady hurt me!" - Steve

aka: The House on Tombstone Hill
aka: The Dead Come Home
A group of friends get trapped in a haunted house.
Starring: Mark Zobian, Sarah Newhouse, Victor Verhaeghe, Douglas Gibson

Link to IMDB

When Mark buys a dilapidated house in the country with the intent of renovating it, he takes seven of his friends out there to help him fix-up his new home. After arriving, they find a creepy noose in the yard and an old tombstone, which Bob proceeds to smash with a sledgehammer. (Bob's a real ass.) This awakens an old lady inside the house! Is she a hobo? Is she a ghost? Well, I'm not even sure that she's a lady, because it looks more like a guy with melted cheese all over his face.

Once they get inside everyone has to argue about everything, mostly because Bob enjoys treating his friends like crap. (I hope Bob becomes a dead dude in the house soon.) The old lady is muttering around and the kids assume she's just lost, but we know something spooky is going on when all the doors become permanently locked, trapping everyone inside the house.
It takes awhile for anything to happen, but eventually the old lady kills one of the boys and he becomes a zombie ghoul! The gang is fully terrified now, so they grab their power tools and crowbars to use as weapons against the old lady hiding upstairs.

"Hi Steve. How's the real world, man?" - Zombie Joey

Old Lady

Watching the granny kill off the kids as they ineffectively try to stop her is both funny and just so damn weird! Troma Entertainment didn't make this film, but they did create the offbeat title and distribute it as a comedy, although it's really more of a slasher-zombie hybrid. There are some intentional laughs, because the undead love a cheesy one-liner just like the rest of us, but there's definitely more of a horror vibe created as the sinister granny stalks the terrified group.
The twisted killings continue as she gleefully dishes out her own brand of peculiar granny violence, but there's also plenty of very dull sections as the kids just wander around in complete darkness, arguing and trying to find a way to escape out of the house.

Dead dude walking

This is a stupid and predictable movie with some gloriously bad acting and dialog, but the effectiveness of the murky atmosphere and bloody deaths cannot be denied, and those two things keep the tense parts feeling like an eccentric nightmare. It honestly gets pretty creepy! In between the action is when it drags slow, and I was checking how many minutes I had left to endure before the sun came up and I could see who survived the night of granny terror... Bob better damn well not live through this! Someone please make sure that idiot dies!




Be sure not to miss:
- The biggest problem the group faces are doors and windows. There are numerous scenes of them being thwarted by doors and windows again and again.
- The old lady is actually played by a man, and it's pretty easy to tell.

Internet review:
"Set your hopes low and your satire spirit high." - Parca

Should I watch it?
Recommended for fans of trashy horror.

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube.

Dead Dudes in the House gets...