Devil Times Five 1974

1974's Devil Times Five (also known as Peopletoys, Tantrums, and The Horrible House on the Hill) is a low budget psychological film starring Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg from the original Dukes of Hazzard TV series), Gene Evans (The Steel Helmet, and about a thousand other TV bit parts that would make him one of the most in demand character actors in the 60's, 70's, and 80's), John Durren (who also wrote the screenplay), Leif Garrett (popular 70's and 80's child actor) and his sister Dawn Lyn also costarred.  Caroyln Steller, who is Leif and Dawn's mother also costarred. 
 

 This film concerns a bunch of adults stranded in a cabin while on a ski trip.  They are soon joined by a bunch of children who are also stranded on the mountain and seek shelter from a blizzard that is on the way.  The adults are weird and the kids are even weirder in this one.  This movie fails on many levels; first of all there's no lighting in the movie at all so many times you can't see what's happening.  The editing which was done by a guy nicknamed "Buzz" seems to be done by a chainsaw so hence the nickname.  I have to give Rickster Rick, The Horror Homie credit here as he is the one who made the chainsaw editor named "Buzz" comparison, so good on him.  What we mean by that is there is literally a scene that is one word long.  The scene fades from that person and it goes right back to the same character who is now in a different part of the room and with different people in the room.  There is one child who is dressed like a nun and calls herself Sister Hannah that Leif Garrett's character calls "George" on at least two occasions.  I dunno why since it's never explained why he calls her that.  Then there's the issue of the snow storm itself.  At one point the children are outside covering a dead body in snow trying to make the corpse into a snowman but they have a hard time doing it because there isn't much snow around.  Remember they are all supposed to be snowed in here folks.  At one point you can see the cleanly plowed road right near the cabin.  A huge WTF? moment there.

This is one of those films that is so bad it's actually enjoyable.  It's not a good piece of cinematic work mind you because once you realize what's going on you want it to hurry up and just get it done.  Then the killings start and the scenes are filmed in slow motion, some are in black and white, and some are done with still photographs.  It was an interesting attempt to do something different but it just made it seem like it took longer than it needed to.  There were lots of laughs but it's not meant to be a comedy so it was better than we expected for all the wrong reasons.  Who knew?  3 Snot Nosed Punks out of 5 from The Horror Honey and I.  Perhaps Rickster Rick will give a comment about what he gives this one or maybe even a review of it on his blog The Land of Cerpts and Honey.