House of Fears (2007)

My husband is not a big fan of horror movies, but he especially hates the cheesy B-movies that I live for.  House of Fears has glorious horror garbage written all over this spastic poster/DVD cover and I cannot wait to watch it.  I love Funhouse and I'm hoping this will be much like it, although they probably can't pull off that laughing fat lady and the crazy Frankenstein guy.  That's Tobe Hooper's territory. 

We begin in Africa, where some excavators dig up some haunted relics that cause them all to die an untimely death.  Some time later, one of the relics gets mailed to the House of Fears, a haunted house in Oregon.  A bitchy chick (Hailey) drags her stepsister (Samantha) to a house party full of stereotypical douchebag guys.  The sisters hook up with a couple of dates (rightfully named Zane and Carter) and pick up another couple (Candice and Devon) and they head over to the House of Fears for a pre-Halloween sneak preview.

They break in (sort of, because they have keys) and start exploring the haunted house.  They, too, find and touch the freaky relic but it does not cause their immediate demise.  However, it does make the electronic residents of the haunted house come to life.  Dun dun dunnnnn.  The teenagers are generally having fun, fooling around, playing tricks, switching dates...you know, typical high school stuff.  But when the haunted house comes alive, it becomes a fight for their lives!  (I could really write the copy for these low-budget flicks)  They're each faced with their worst fears, one of which is a scarecrow.  Seriously?  Anyway, I think we've seen the "dying from your fears" plot working a little better than it does here.  They spend the last portion of the movie running around the haunted house like chickens with their heads cut off and it gets a bit tiresome.

This is a pretty predictable horror movie overall.  There's actually very little gore, and the cheesy characters get kind of annoying after awhile.  I really wish that low budget movies would start going outside the casting box a little.  Once again, we're stuck with the formula of the cute/shy girl and the jock hero, the sex kitten and her token black boyfriend, the bitchy chick that no one wants to date, and the loud-mouthed dork chasing all the girls.  Would it take too much to think of a group of teenagers beyond this structure?  If you want to see kids stuck in a ride/haunted house, see Funhouse.  And even The Fun Park and Dark Ride is better than this flick.