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Jacob (Antwoine Steele) has landed a job as night watchman of a large
office and retail building, and he's determined to not mess this up. And
at first, everything seems really cool, Cane (George Hardy) the building
manager might be a little rough around the edges, but has a good heart,
Jackson (Bryan David) the maintenance man who shows him around seems to be
a very nice and laid back guy, and while some of the tenants like psychics
Cassie (Nicole Santorella) and Hanna (Michaela Paxton Tarbell) seem a bit
crazy, they're also harmless and friendly - friendly enough to invite him
to join in on a séance for a widow (Iris Runyon) wanting to contact her
deceased husband that's filmed by a camera team (Millie Milan, Bred
Westmar). Sure, Jacob has his reservations about this one due to his
upbringing, but on the other hand, what's the worst that could happen,
right?
Of course, the worst does happen, as the séance somehow awakens the
spirits of those killed in a massacre in the brothel of Madame Greta
(Dyanne Thorne) that occupied the building in the 1930s, and the killer, a
mad priest (Lew Temple), is also back - and those tortured souls see to it
that the little group present in the séance is killed one by one, while
there's (naturally) no way to escape the building ...
Now House of Forbidden Secrets is by no means a film
that reinvents the horror genre - but it's a nice throwback to low budget
genre fare of the 1980s and early 1990s that's focussed on driving its
plot forward with outbursts of explicit violence, jump scares, bits of
suspense and some grotesque images paving the way without any of today's
postmodern (self-)irony or an over-indulgence in easter eggs, but also
without taking itself too seriously but putting a major emphasis on
atmosphere. And the film really works like a charm as what it is, a
rollercoaster ridewith everything a horror fan could ask for - and of
course, seeing cult actress Dyanne Thorne in one of her few recent
on-screen performances is only an added bonus!
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