Devil Times Five (1974) ***

AKA
The Horrible House on the Hill
AKA
People Toys
Directors
Sean MacGregor, David Sheldon
Writer
John Durren
Cast
Gene Evens, Taylor Lacher, Sorrell Booke, Joan McCall, Shelley Morrison, Carolyn Stellar, Leif Garrett



Three couples are taking a working vacation at an isolated ski resort. The demanding patriarch of the group, Papa Doc (Gene Evans) resents his lazy son-in-law, Rick (Taylor Lacher) who blithely ignores the working part of this working vacation. Along for the trip is one of Papa Doc's doormat employees, Harvey Beckman (Sorrell Booke; Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard) and his alcoholic wife Ruth (Shelley Morrison; the maid on Will and Grace). Rick is there to spend some quality time with his good and virtuous spouse, Julie (Joan McCall; Grizzly) but also draws the attention of Papa Doc's slutty sex kitten of a wife, Lovely (Carolyn Stellar). Julie and Lovely do not like each other. Yes, there will be a cat fight. Rounding out this group is the mentally challenged caretaker of the lodge, Ralph (John Durren).


In some boring not exploitation film, these characters would interact and sort out their differences for the next 88 minutes. Luckily, this is an exploitation horror film and so a group of psychotic children are brought into the mix. No doubt on route to a maximum security snake pit to be locked away for the rest of their natural lives, a bus of homicidal kids crashes and five of the little monsters manage to survive. They are as follows: the boy who thinks he's a soldier, the girl who thinks she's a nun, the girl who likes fish, the girl who likes fire and the cross dressing boy in the wig who thinks he's off to Hollywood. I'll wait while you go buy this movie now.

O.K. The kids arrive at the lodge and the adults start dying. To their credit, after the first body is discovered, it does not take long for Rick and Julie long to figure out that there is something a little eee-hew about the kids. Unfortunately for them things go from bad to worse rather quickly as the kids arm themselves with guns and embark on a rapid and rather imaginative killing spree. Bear traps and piranha are put to some very naughty use. I'll wait for the rest of you to go buy this movie.


O.K. The acting is pretty good all around with Sorrell Booke as the standout. He really does generate sympathy for his put upon character and interacts the best with the kids. The kids give very natural performances. I read one review that makes the following point; these kids are freaky because they are not aliens or possessed by the devil, they are just homicidal. I agree. Further, these kids are not super-geniuses. The wanna be actor and wanna be nun are somewhat precocious but not so much as to stretch credibility. There is a scene in which Harvey Beckman plays a game of chess with one of the kids and wins (much to the child's displeasure). I was pleasantly surprised that the script did not have this child win the game and imply that he was some sort of prodigy and thus a greater threat. The only things that make these children so lethal are their willingness to kill and appearance of harmlessness. These kids are just twisted and the final scene of the film is seriously messed up.

On the downside it is a cheap film that had problems from the outset. A replacement director had to be called in to shoot some footage in order to flesh out the story. The freeze frames after the murder sequences are irritating. There is much padding so the film takes a while to get going and sags in the middle. We are not given much of a back story on the kids but I am not convinced that this is to the film's detriment. Besides, they're kids, how much back story could they have?

Still, what it lacks in polish it makes up for in the sheer audacity of it's premise and the willingness to take full advantage of it. The refreshingly mean spirited finale is worth the wait. After it was shot there was some difficulty in distributing this film, largely due to its controversial subject matter. I doubt that this could even get made today.

.