Director
Ethan Wiley
Cast
Arye Gross - Jesse McLaughlin
Jonathan Stark - Charlie Coriell
Royal Dano - Gramps
Bill Maher - John Statmen
John Ratzenberger - Bill Towner
Lar Park Lincolc - Kate
Dean Cleverdon - Slim
I remember seeing this film probably shortly after its video release back in 1987 or 1988 thanks to my brother renting it.
Though the title is the same as part one, the rest is different. There's a different house. There's a different director. There's all different characters. And there's a different plot that's unrelated to the first movie. I guess that makes sense since the title is "The Second Story."
House II is another horror comedy, this time centering on Jesse McLaughlin (Arye Gross) and his girlfriend Kate (Lar Park Lincoln - Friday the 13th part VII: The New Blood) as they move into an old house that has been in Jesse's family for several generations.
On the day they move in, Jesse's dorky pal Charlie (Jonathan Stark - Fright Night) and his forgettable girlfriend, Lana (Amy Yasbeck - Problem Child) - I'm surprised the writers bothered giving her a name at all - drop in completely unexpectedly.
Kate works for a record company, so their true purpose for stopping in is for Kate to discover Lana as a pop singer.
Anyways, Jesse's parents were murdered in the house while he was in his infancy. Now that he has finally returned, he starts searching through family documents and pictures looking into his family's history.
While doing so, he finds a picture of his great-great grandfather Jesse, from whom he gets his name, in front of an Aztec pyramid, holding a crystal skull with jeweled eyes. Also pictured is a more ominous looking character Jesse learns is his great-great grandfather's former partner turned adversary, "Slim."
Evidently, when Grandpa Jesse found the crystal skull, he and Slim had a bitter disagreement as to who would keep it.
Young Jesse sets out with sidekick Charlie to grandpa Jesse's grave, assuming the skull is buried with him.
When they dig up the coffin and find the skull, grandpa Jesse's corpse (Royal Dano - The Dark Half, Ghoulies II, Killer Klowns from Outer Space) attacks him.
While being nearly strangled to death by the 170-year old corpse, Jesse manages to choke out that he's his great-great grandson.
Grandpa Jesse is surprised by this revelation and lets him go. Soon, young Jesse and Charlie take a quick liking to grandpa Jesse, whom they start calling "Gramps."
They take Gramps and his crystal skull home. Much to Gramps's dismay, the skull hasn't kept him from aging as he thought it would.
This is where one of the funniest lines I heard in a movie as a kid is uttered by gramps - a line that I never forgot. It's a line I searched for when I tried to find this movie years later, but couldn't remember the title.
"I'm a 170-year old fart," Gramps says when he sees his reflection for the first time since he was buried.
I remember finding this line so hilarious, either I or my brother rewound the scene in a few times to really let the phrase set in.
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| 'Slim' (Dean Cleverdon) faces off with Gramps (Royal Dano) in House 2. |
Anyways, now that the skull is in the home, Gramps tells them that stones from the Aztec temple were used in the house's construction which gives the house power over time and space.
Rooms act as portals to the past.
During a Halloween party, which gives old Gramps enough cover to roam about the house without standing out to the guests, Kate's creepy boss John Statman (Bill Maher) shows up.
He spots Jesse chatting with an old fling, and assumes the two are flirting.
Kate finds out, and ends up leaving.
While all this is taking place, Jesse and Charlie enter one of the upstairs rooms which becomes a portal to the Jurassic era.
Inside, they come across a baby pterodactyl and a creature that's part caterpillar and part adorable puppy. They call it a "cater-puppy."
The pterodactyl, along with a caveman intent on stealing the skull, gets loose the house. The expectation is that hilarity will ensue. They take the cater-puppy in as a new pet.
But the last person they want showing up, however, is Slim.
When horror movies have throw-away characters, as this one does, the audience knows those characters are going to fall victim to a monster or killer in some way or another. That's especially true in slasher flicks. While House II is classified as a horror, it certainly is no slasher.
Rather than die, the throw-away characters in House II just leave. They literally get in a car, and drive away, never to be seen or heard from again. In fact, no one dies in this movie except for 170-year old Gramps who finally dies after 170 years of being buried. Oh, sorry...spoiler alert!
Compared to the first, which didn't have much in the way of "horror" except for a few monsters, part 2's horror is much more watered down.
Watching House II made me realize how William Katt's performance in the first film is what holds that movie together.
The actors in part two try to pull off something worthwhile with the material they're given. But much of it sounds scripted and forced. Still, I just can't blame the actors too much.
The strange scenarios feel like the movie is being written as it progresses along.
I shouldn't be too harsh as director Ethan Wiley only had two weeks to write the movie's screenplay.
Such is the case in the scenes where the baby pterodactyl gets loose in the house, and Jesse and Charlie chase it around while trying to keep it all a secret from Kate, John, and whoever that other girl was. And then the cater-puppy is thrown in for marketability. Sadly, the movie fails even in that regard.
In another scene, an electrician (John Ratzenberger) stops by fix the wiring. While working, he finds another portal to a different time period.
"One of those time portal things... you see these all the time in these old houses," he tells Jesse when he stumbles upon it after punching a large hole in a wall.
It turns out the electrician doubles as an adventurer as he pulls out a sword from his tool box, and the three of them go in.
They walk in on an ancient cult about to sacrifice a virgin.
They attack the cult members, save the virgin, and they bring her into their own time where she just hangs out with them, and serves absolutely no purpose other than add a little sex appeal.
This sequel is a mess of randomness.
Ratzenberger is the most entertaining part of the film thanks to his humor and humdrum attitude, uttering lines that begin with "ehh, uuhh..." His character is the only part of the movie that made me laugh.
In the first film, George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) plays the neighbor, Harold. And
Ratzenberger, plays Cliff on Cheers. I wonder if producers tried to get any more stars from Cheers to be in the subsequent House films.
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| Royal Dano as 'Gramps' in House 2. |
There is one returning actor from part one. Dwier Brown, who plays the Lieutenant in William Katt's Vietnam flashbacks, plays Clarence in part two. As you might have guessed, Brown's return doesn't sell part two.
If part one has a comedic tone similar to Gremlins, part two maintains only some of that. The rest resembles something like a lesser known, haphazard episode of The Twilight Zone.
And that random haphazard tone is embodied in the thing that's part puppy and part caterpillar
I have not seen the next two sequels, House 3: Horror Show and House IV. I'm undecided at this point if I'll make any attempt to find and watch them.
House 2 is a movie to experience for those who watched part one. But should anyone forego this sequel, they're only missing out on a weak film that seems to have forgotten the horror when it was so quickly put together.
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