Just like the “source novel,” House of the Damned starts with the new tenant at the Grange, Mr. Lockwood, paying a social call on his landlord at Wuthering Heights. However, instead of appreciating the friendly gesture, Heathcliff is rather put out by his presence. Nevertheless, a sudden storm forces Lockwood to spend the night in a guest room, where he finds and reads Catherine Earnshaw’s diary.
Of course, she and Heathcliff, the orphan who became her father’s ward, were deeply in love, but in an unhealthy way. Regardless, it was not meant to be. She married the older Edgar Linton instead and it ended in tears—especially in this film. Later, Lockwood’s housekeeper Nelly fills in more of the blanks. However, in this version, every natural death is actually quite unnatural. Something is rotten in Wuthering Heights—and whatever it is, it makes Lockwood gravely ill during his second, unwelcome visit.
Screenwriter Liana Failla quite cleverly follows the outline of Bronte’s novel, while incorporating gory demises for most of the characters. Unlike many of the recent killer Popeyes and Steamboat Willies, House of the Damned was not conceived as a quick and dirty exploitation knockoff. Failla and Matthews developed a real strategy for transforming Bronte’s novel into a horror film.
Unfortunately, they were working with a budget that was probably less than the average vintage Hammer horror film, not adjusting for inflation. Those financial constraints sometimes show on-screen. Yet, some fans will still appreciate the lurid retro gothic atmosphere.
While House of the Damned still undeniably qualifies as a B-movie, it is considerably smarter than you might expect. A lot of the cast and crew clearly took the time to read Bronte’s original novel, which is something. “Recommend” is a strong word, but if you want to see one of the recent horror movie public domain mash-ups, this is probably the one to start with, since it releases today (10/16) on VOD.
