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Many think the House of Purgatory, a haunted house attraction on
five levels nobody has ever made it through alive, is only an urban legend
baed on nothing substantial, like urban legends usually are - only Ryan
(Brad Fry), top jock of his school and Mr. Wannabe Cool if there ever was
one, knows better - heck, he's got the address, even. So on Halloween, he
fetches his friends Melanie (Anne Leighton), Amber (Laura Coover) and Nate
(Aaron Galvin) to pay the place a visit. Thing is, the House of Purgatory
isn't just some cardboard backdrops with skeletons hanging from the walls
like your usual haunted house but a rather surreal place that digs into
one's mind and where doors can lead one to places where they felt most
guilty or most vulnerable. And now or four heroes are faced with their
greatest guilts and fears, ranging from suppressed homosexuality to
unwanted abortion, sexual abuse to hit-and-run accidents. And the longer
this goes on, the further they get, the more obvious it becomes they might
not make it to the end either ... Brian Krause plays the Skeleton Man,
who might just be behind all of this ... Now truth to be told,
the urban-legend-come-to-life concept has been done to death by 2016 - but
House of Purgatory only uses this as a hanger for a story more in
tune with Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
(to each their own hell) or the Nightmare
on Elm Street series, and while the film might never reach the
actual heights of either, it stands pretty firmly on its own feet, is
cleverly structured and doesn't fall into the trap to explain everything
away in favour of freaking out its audience, and the film's reliance on
atmosphere only helps with that. Now add to this an ensemble cast
believable in their roles, and you've got yourself a piece of fine genre
entertainment.
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