The House on Skull Mountain
October. 04,1974 PGWhen the relatives of a recently deceased voodoo priestess gather at her sinister house on Skull Mountain for the reading of the will, they discover a killer in their midst who wants to keep them from collecting their inheritance.
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To me, this movie is perfection.
Lack of good storyline.
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
The house on skull mountain certainly is weird..... It's definitely without a doubt a very poorly made movie. The acting is terrible, it's not scary AT ALL, and the script is crap. The plot is muddled and jumbled, doesn't make much sense. This movie also suffers from being just flat out boring, it just won't hold an audiences attention at all, the construction is just too low quality and poor to entertain any member of any audience. The effects are very dated and cheesy as well. The acting is literally like straight out of a porn film, I mean they don't even try here. The director must have just been looking for a quick buck, because he couldn't have cared much about this lazy flop, it would've shown If he did. This movie just isn't worth anything in the cinematic realm..... I mean not a thing. 1/10.
Back in the 1970s, Mike Evans played the recurring character Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons". Eventually, he was replaced on "The Jeffersons" by a guy who looked nothing like him...and I always wondered why this happened. Well, after reading a bit, it seems that he quit acting temporarily in 1975 because he was the co-creator and writer for "Good Times". However, just before quitting acting, he accepted a leading role in "The House on Skull Mountain". Perhaps Evans should have considered giving up acting a year sooner-- since his role in the film was rather one dimensional and silly. Of course, the film itself is one dimensional and silly!!The film begins with an old black lady dying. Various relatives who don't know each other have all been invited to her estate for a reading of the old woman's will. However, before this occurs, there is a death--and things start to get really scary. Lots of snakes appear and disappear, the Grim Reaper keeps popping by to visit and there's an underground voodoo cult that meets there for their little dance parties. Who will survive the stay at Skull Mountain? If I had some distant relative die and I was invited to their estate at Skull Mountain, I might just think twice. After all, 'Skull Mountain' doesn't exactly sound like a friendly place! And, when various folks in the home start seeing weird hallucinations of death, you'd think they'd skedaddle--I sure know I would! But, being a cheesy exploitation film they don't and the results are rather predictable and silly. I also wonder if most Black-Americans who might watch this today might just feel a bit embarrassed by all this silliness and these stereotypes. And, it really is silly--just the sort of guilty pleasure bad movie fans might enjoy. Others, however, should watch at their own risk--Shakespeare this isn't!
***Spoilers*** Very disjointed and confusing Blackspolitation horror movie with very few real scares but loads of unintentional laughs in it. The movie has to do with a quartet of relatives of the what looks like 100 plus year old lady of the house on Skull Mountain Pauline Christophe played by Mary J. Todd McKenzie in her both first and last film appearance who are called over to hear the reading of the will that Pauline left them before she passed away.The big joke or was it a mistake on the film makers part is that the will is never read! This made all the tension in the movie in who's to get what among Pauline last living relatives never fully realized or exploited. We do get to see a great, the by far best scene in the film, voodoo snake dance choreographed by the houses wild eyed butler Thomas, Jean Durand, with about two dozen voodoo worshipers that if you think about it has really nothing at all to do with the films already confusing storyline! Which has to do with who gets what in the will that's to be read by Payline's personal attorney Mr. Ledaux, Leroy Johnson, who's after his initial appearances in the movie just seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth!The big hero in the movie happened to be the black or better yet white sheep in the Christophe family anthropology professor Andrew Cunningham,Victor French, who's been studying voodoo for years and has some idea of what's really going on in the movie. Cunningham is also looking for his roots in that he's not really sure who is his in that his birth records and whom his parents are have somehow been lost in the shuffle! This all has Cunningham not really knowing if he's either black or white or even,in the slight slant in his eyes, Oriental for that matter!***SPOILERS*** About the biggest surprise in the film has to do with Butler Thomas who's trying to take over the house on Skull Mountain and become the big man in the local voodoo cult that both he and the house chambermaid Louette, Ela Woods,founded! For some strange reason Thomas ends up sacrificing Louette in a wild voodoo snake charming ceremony and with that tries to resurrect the dead Pauline, a voodoo practitioner herself, back to life to consolidate his power! As it turned out there's only room for one voodoo leader on Skull Mountain which an grossly overconfident Thomas was to find out the hard way with Pauline finally putting an end to his deranged and crazed plans!
Relatives are sent a letter, an invite to come to the Southern mansion, on the outskirts of Atlanta, of a voodoo priestess, who has died, expecting them to ward off an evil they do not know. Each person, the foxy attractive Lorena(Janee Michelle), smart-mouth, obnoxious Phillippe(Mike EVans of "The Jeffersons"), polite, mannered Christian Harriet(Xernona Clayton)and the unlikely "honky" of the group, an anthropology professor, who has studied voodoo, Dr. Andrew Cunningham(Victor French of "Highway to Heaven" and "Little House on the Prairie"), haven't even met their ancestor. While it appears this group is gathering for a will reading, they are instead in for a battle against the creepy butler, Tomas(Jean Durand), secretly practicing voodoo rituals in a hidden room below the mansion using his abilities to endanger their lives. It'll be up to the unlikely heroics of Cunningham, who definitely sticks out like a sore thumb in this mostly African-American cast, and his knowledge of voodoo, to stop Tomas who wishes to strengthen his powers by marrying Lorena, a mostly pure Christophe.Voodoo horror outing even has a musical ritual performed by practitioners in that cavernous den below the mansion. There are skulls aplenty, which I admired, such as the face on the mountain where the mansion resides and on the door that greets visitors. Even Death pops up every once in a while to point towards potential victims. The climax even has Pauline Christophe(Mary J Todd McKenzie)rising from the grave, by order of Tomas which adds some fun to the proceedings. I think this kind of horror film, which gives over to the supernatural elements of the practiced religion, might make many viewers chuckle instead of fold into their seats. The cast is okay, nothing mind-blowing, but just the audacity to have a white hero is something to create interest for this kind of unusual horror effort. Not a bit violent, this was suppose to spook, not disgust. The setting, I loved a great deal.. the mansion is quite a stunning set. I thought the ending where Tomas and Cunningham square off in a sword fight was a bit hokey, though. I'm not sure whatever happened to the participants of the voodoo dance once Tomas accidentally slices a skull, ritualistically placed on a stick which holds Lorena hypnotically imprisoned. You have to gloss over flaws like that when a film allows liberties regarding the power of voodoo on innocents.