Sunday, September 3, 2017

Terror at Red Wolf Inn (1972)

Original title: Terror House

Director: Bud Townsend

Writer: Allen Actor

Composer: Bill Marx

Starring: Linda Gillen, John Neilson, Arthur Space, Mary Jackson, Janet Wood, Margaret Avery, Michael Macready, Earl Parker

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They'd love to have you for dinner.

Plot:  College student Regina comes back to her room from class one day to discover she's won a getaway vacation at the quiet Red Wolf Inn. Before she can even call her parents to let them know where she'll be, the lodge owners arrange her transport and she soon finds herself with two other young women as guests of a kindly old couple. The place is beautiful and the food is fantastic, but something just doesn't seem right. One of the guests has suddenly vanished, and the hosts are certainly reluctant to have anyone poking around the meat locker. Still, the barbecued ribs are delicious, so what's there to complain about?



My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I don't understand what the filmmakers thought because the movie poster is playing cute like this is a comedy yet the movie doesn't play like one in the least.  There are a couple of peculiar character moments but there aren't any attempts at laughs.  You could consider, I suppose, that the elderly couple that's doing the killing are over the top, nobody's this polite, grandparents but that's it.  The ending is dumb unless it's Baby John's imagination.  Technically the movie's fine but if read the poster and see the trailer, there's nothing to be surprised by in the film.  I didn't see the trailer before I watched it but it was pretty obvious early on where the picture was going and that's no fun if there's no fun to be found.  Had it been a comedy (even a more obvious black comedy) then there could be some potential for being entertained.  As it is, it's an OK film that's neither bad nor good and the only thing really lacking is a better story.  All other aspects are good enough that a better story would've served all of them much better.


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