House of the Witchdoctor (2013) User Reviews (21)

Home invasion goes bad for all involved - audience included.

[chrismackey1972 · 4/10 · 26 September 2014]

A group of 5 college-aged kids go to spend the weekend at the house of one of their parents. Before they get there, they stop in town for something to eat. Two of them are confronted by a man who was recently released from prison, along with his demented side-kick. After that scary incident, the group of kids get in the car and continue to their destination. The parents are a bit creepy, but nothing is really thought about it, and the parents leave the house for the evening, leaving the kids alone. Just by chance, the ex-con and his friend are driving by, trying to find a house to rob, when they come across the place where the kids are staying. They break in and the fun begins.

This is a slasher, but not in the typical sense. Usually, a slasher is a movie with an unknown assailant. In this movie, it's very obvious who the killers are. There are the typical slasher props of blood, boobs, butts, gore, 3 rape scenes. Considering that this was low budget, they were a bit graphic, and - like all rapes scenes - were a total turn-off to me. There are also some typical clichés, such as the most commonly used; the phone not working. Another of the clichés is when the victims have the chance - the very definite chance - of killing the badguys, they simply smash them in the face or the nuts or try strangling them instead of using the knife to do the job quickly. All of that gives the badguys the ability to overpower the kids and...well, do their horrific best on them.

I did not like this. The two boyfriends were the most useless people in the entire movie. They make a point of showing how muscular one of them is, but when the badguys break into his room and grab his girlfriend, they don't have any weapon out at that time, and the big, strong boyfriend doesn't even try pouncing on them.

To some extent, this was a movie where the characters - specifically the goodguys - did such stupid things, I had to really laugh. But all-in-all, the movie, especially the ending scene in the basement, was not at all what I thought it would be, nor did I like it.

I gave this a 4-star rating because the acting wasn't that bad, considering it was low budget, and I think one has to consider that when rating these things. The cinematography was pretty good. The storyline...not so much.

Bland and very generic horror...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 1 March 2020]

I stumbled upon the 2013 horror movie "House of the Witchdoctor" in 2020. And I hadn't even heard about it prior to finding it by random luck. I saw that it was a horror movie, and when I saw that Bill Moseley was in it, I just had to sit down and watch it, as I think he is usually good in horror movies.

Without knowing anything about "House of the Witchdoctor" there was no expectations to the movie, so writer and director Devon Mikolas had a clean slate to impress me with.

As it turned out then "House of the Witchdoctor" was a sort of boring movie and it was definitely a generic horror movie, as it offered no surprises along the way. Everything seemed to follow a very over-used formula of how-to-make-a-horror-movie. And it didn't really work out well in favor of the movie.

The storyline was bland and mediocre, and it didn't help much that the characters were equally pointless and bland as the storyline was. And not even iconic Bill Moseley could do much to lift up this particular movie.

For a horror movie then "House of the Witchdoctor" is not a movie that is worth the time, effort or money, to be bluntly honest. Some of us suffered through the movie so you don't have to.

I am rating this movie a mere three out of ten stars. Hardly a noteworthy addition to the horror genre, nor a milestone in Bill Moseley's acting career. This is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

Potentially good, made by people with no potential.

[charliecoffell · 1/10 · 12 August 2019]

Chompcrc here. Man this was not good. The two criminals were so overly portrayed that it was just annoying. The little religious boy storyline was useless, and the twist was cheap and poorly acted by Bill Moseley. I hate to be mean, but he simply cannot act. A cult dressed like they are attending a costume party? What? Not to mention the horribly awkward sex scene, completely unnecessary nudity from the two girls, and totally cliche "it worked after all" ending. Just because you can make a movie, doesn't mean you should.

Horrible

[arfdawg-1 · 2/10 · 29 October 2014]

The Plot:

Evil wreaks pure havoc and bloody murder upon Leslie Van Hooten, a beautiful young girl, and her unsuspecting fellow grad students as they make their way to her family's extravagant and yet isolated estate.

Peter (Bill Moseley- Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, House of 1000 Corpses) and Irene Van Hooten (Leslie Easterbrook- The Devil's Rejects, Police Academy), the young girl's mother and father, leave the group alone for the weekend, so that she may mourn the anniversary of her boyfriend's shocking murder.

But the peaceful weekend soon turns to hell when they find themselves being savagely terrorized by Cliff Rifton (Allan Kayser- Night of the Creeps, TV's Mama's Family), a crazed and recently released career criminal, and Buzz Schenk, his drug addict side kick whom are hell bent on raging a torturous killing spree.

OK. So this is one of those one-year-later movies that's been done a hundred thousand times before.

It's very slow in the beginning. Painfully slow with boring melodic music.

Then it takes a weird violent turn but it's still not very interesting. It fact, it turns stupid. And back to being excruciatingly slow.

The acting is an abomination. The inevitability factor is non existent.

The movie truly sucks.

Fun, somewhat

[Red_Identity · 20 September 2014]

The reviews for this certainly made me anticipate it more. As it is, it's not the usual horror flick you'd expect, but because I kept reading about its originality, I was disappointed in where it did go. It just seemed like too simple a set up, not to mention very obvious, since the film clearly doesn't hide that its hiding some secrets and it sort of becomes apparent early on with a glance exchanged between two characters. Still, the film works despite of itself, and the two leading male antagonists are quite good here, and seem to actually be having a lot of fun which helps the film's energy.Overall, nothing all that great or even all that good, but worth it.

Twist i didnt see coming

[mlhare · 1/10 · 7 September 2021]

I watched this knowing it would be violent. What i didnt like is all the rape scenes. Everyine killed was involved in a rape scene in some way. Seriously, what sick f**k wrote this!? I would have enjoyed the movie and not only rated it higher but would have recommended it as well. As it is i would tell everyone who will listen to just avoid. Nothing but smut. Could have been good. They could have still had bad guys killing but in different ways. Oh ya the ending was good with the twist as her friends were sacrifices but when last girl came up possessed what now...

Shouldn't have ever been made

[bobbynitefall · 1/10 · 10 February 2016]

Badly written, badly paced and badly acted.

It's like they had 30 minutes worth of material and tried to spread it out into an hour and a half. Much of the dialog seemed ad-libbed or written by someone who doesn't actually interact with other people.

The plot was forced and the "twist" was so obvious as to not be a twist at all.

The only slightly redeeming part of the movie was Bill Mosely and even that seemed forced.

The ending was so hokey and again seemed made just to lengthen the film.

The final ending was laughable. Bad.

Total waste of time!

[venusboys3 · 2/10 · 7 October 2014]

The lowdown is... this is an attempt to make a Rob Zombie-style grindhouse horror movie... by someone with absolutely no clue of what makes those films work.

Really, I'll watch some awful horrid garbage and manage to find SOMETHING I liked about it... but I just could not manage that here. Mostly I'm going to blame the writing/directing. Nearly all modern movies look fairly decent... good technology and loads of film school graduates who know how to use it (even if they haven't a clue how to tell a story). The acting... it was hard to tell. A lot of it seemed awfully flat... but the script was so utterly putrid and it's not apparent there was an actual director on set... so... I'm loathe to blame the performers.

Just plain bad... and not even the fun sort of bad.

Evil little bugger with teeth

[matzernstmatzernst · 6/10 · 28 September 2014]

Most Horror movies nowadays suffer from a complete lack of originality. House of the Witchdoctor doesn't. It's an entertaining, evil little bugger with teeth. And guts. And, of course, it has Bill Moseley.

The storyline is a nice twist on the usual "Five friends spend the wekend and get butchered" theme. There's also some really bad acting, especially the two evil guys display some extremely funny buffoonery, but this, too, is fun to watch. At least if you don't have a problem with trash, cause this is basically a Trash movie with a better budget. I think most Horror fans would enjoy the ride, you get your share of blood and gore, some laughs (a lot of laughs actually) and, um, Bill Moseley. Did I mention that before?

If you like 80s Horror as I do, you might also notice the smell of those days that reeks from this movie. Which is a good thing.

One star, but a GOOD one star!

[clintstevens · 1/10 · 22 January 2020]

First off, this is possibly the worst movie EVER made, but don't miss it. I cannot begin to describe how bad it is, but it ends up being the funniest slasher, voodoo, deviant, horror movie ever produced.

The cast is amateurish, the dialog is hysterical ('Nobody rapes my friend, scumbag!") and appears to have been made up on the spot. And then there are the facial expressions...priceless! And the plot...what plot? AHAHAHA!

The only thing funnier than this movie are the glowing phony 10 star reviews on here.

Just gather some friends, bring in a supply of liquid refreshments, sit back and be prepared to laugh your butt off!

Homage to 1970s Rape Revenge Films, with a Twist

[AliceCraven · 9/10 · 23 September 2014]

The first half of House of the Witchdoctor hearkens back to the uncomfortably gritty ultra- violence of 1970s films such as "I Spit on Your Grave" and "The Last House on the Left." The final act of "Witchdoctor" eschews the standard rape-revenge formula in favor of the occult and supernatural, and delivers quite a bit of unexpected humor in the process. Solid performances from a great horror cast make this a joy to watch. Allan Kayser is convincingly savage in his role as one of the criminals. Bill Moseley and Leslie Easterbrook deliver darkly humorous performances as suburban parents with a twisted secret. Genre fans may also recognize Dyanne Thorne of "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" in a bit part as a neighbor.

I'M SAVING MYSELF FOR MARRIAGE

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 7 September 2018]

If you like an old fashion 80's style home break-in film with an easy foreseeable twist, that appears to have been inspired by an old David Hess movie, this is it.

In our opening scene John (Nick Bastounes) who just got engaged is killed. A year later, his surviving fiancee Leslie (Callie Stephens) invites four friends to her home for a pity party. There is one rule. No going into the basement, as dad, who has been to Haiti does his research work down there. You should be able to see where this is going...

Meanwhile two hooligans, high on crack break into the home and have their way with the girls until...

This is just one of those film whose highlight is the rape and nudity, but has enough of a story to hold our interest so it is not too gratuitous. wink wink nudge nudge.The film develops character, but doesn't create anyone who we care about, which is just as well.

Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne) in a small role.

Perv Guide: F-bomb, sex, rape, nudity (Callie Stephens, Emily Bennett, Summer Bills, Steffie Grote)

Could have been decent

[mhorg2018 · 1/10 · 19 December 2017]

While the twist ending is one decent twist, the hour and fifteen minutes that comes before it drags this film down, down, down. Bad acting, bad directing, poor effects and two bad guys who are obviously rip offs of the two bad guys who have a REALLY bad day in A History of Violence (except their acting stinks), drag this down. At lengths boring with a bit of nudity to spice it up, this barely helps the watcher to enjoy this. So what might have been a decent movie just spirals down into a below average waste of time.

Worst movie EVER !!!

[alan_kiesler · 1/10 · 30 September 2014]

This has to be THE worst movie i ever saw !!! So bad, i can't even find the words to describe it. Stay away and save your time. Do NOT watch it even if you don't have anything better to do. bad script, bad acting, bad idea for a movie. What the hell was going on the director's mind when he decided to make this movie, is beyond me. Once again...Stay away !!! Now, in order to get this review submitted,i needed to write at least ten lines, but it is difficult to write ten lines about a movie which is so bad. There wasn't even one actor in this movie who could save it from getting the worst review i ever had to give. This is how bad it is !! I only watched it till the end because i had to find out how law, cheesy and stupid it could get.

How to Make an Effective Modern-Day Horror Movie

[lazarillo · 10 October 2014]

This is not a great modern-day horror movie, but it is a very effective one that I'd put somewhere between "House of 1,000 Corpses" And "House of the Devil", but also with a little rape-revenge thrown in. It has a very effective atmosphere with two college-age couples accompanying their friend "Leslie Van Hooten" to the wintry, isolated home of her parents on the anniversary of her boyfriend's death. It then turns into a pretty harrowing rape-revenge film when two criminals show up, who one of the couples had earlier tangled with. Rather than becoming a slick modern-day torture porn at this point though, these scenes have the more gritty feel of something like "Last House on the Left" (the 70's original). The movie then takes yet another turn, however, into a more "House of the Devil" territory, as is given away by the title (and perhaps the name of the main protagonist).

The characters are little more well-drawn than in other movies. They're college graduates and seem a little smarter than usual. One couple is the typical pair of horn-dogs who can't stop humping each other, but the other pair are Christians who spurn pre-marital sex (more unusual and more interesting). This doesn't mean that ANY of them are necessarily going to come out too well though. This also has an interesting scene where one of the rapist-murderers gets out of prison and stops to visit his deeply religious mother. It's unusual to give a character like this any kind of third dimension, but it actually makes the things he does later more disturbing.

The name actor here is Bill Mosely ("House of 1,000 Corpses"), who plays the "Van Hooten" father, but special mention must be made of the unknown cast of young people and the "democratic" use of nudity. The three girls all get naked. Nudity is pretty necessary here--you can't really make a harrowing rape-revenge film while pussy-footing around actresses' "no-nudity clauses". But even if some scenes are a little gratuitous, well, all horror movies today seem to have gratuitous (as in pretty unnecessary to the plot) sex scenes and shower scenes like this, but a lot of times they do them WITHOUT nudity, which is both pointless and annoying. Besides, the female characters are also the most well-developed and interesting--they're not just porn star types with fake looking breasts who are obviously just there to get naked. Calle Stephens and Emily Bennet are slightly better actresses, but Summer Bills deserves some mention, not just for being a very appealing little cutie, but I never would have found my way to this movie except I saw HER on the Investigation Discovery channel portraying the girlfriend of XXX superstar/possible murderer John Holmes (the same character played by Kate Bosworth in "Wonderland") and I was curious what else she was in. It's a pretty dumb motive for watching a horror movie maybe, but, hey, it worked out OK.

Bad

[donkey_dick · 2/10 · 11 February 2021]

That black dude in the beginning is one of the worst actors on earth. But I've got to hand it to him because that's why I gave this 2 stars rather than 1. For his hilariously bad performance.

Don't go into the basement!

[parry_na · 7/10 · 24 June 2020]

This is an entertaining home invasion film, in which a major plot revelation is given away by the title. What I enjoy about this is that it does something different with a familiar idea.

The plot involves a group of youngsters. Two couples and Becky, who has invited her friends to stay at her home on the anniversary of the death of her boyfriend, have their get together spoiled by two violent criminals who are intent to, in their own words, 'get high and **** these b*****s'. These two antagonists are played in a genuinely entertaining way, and relish telling the youths (and the audience) exactly what villainy they intend to get up to. There's also a surprising amount of topless nudity on display. The profanities are also worth mentioning, as their copious usage is guaranteed - guaranteed, I tell you - to have you laughing out loud.

There's something else afoot too. Something worse. And that's as far as I'll reveal here, although once again, the title will give you a sizeable clue.

As 'House of the Witch Doctor' rolls on, there is a growing feeling that it isn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. I'm not sure whether or not the final revelation tips things too far into absurdity, but the mood of the film has gradually become so extreme by this point that it is difficult to resist.

Great fun, with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. My score is 7 out of 10.

Pure entertainment!

[Tracilspencer · 9/10 · 26 September 2014]

I loved this movie. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It's a fun, scary, intense movie with plenty of gore, terrorized victims, sex, drugs, blood and even some dark humor, mostly delivered by "Buzz" who was my favorite character. He's a character who you love to hate. His sidekick is a piece of work too. They draw you in and make you want to watch them. All the acting is good however. I liked the setting too. This movie is not your typical horror flick, so stay with it. There's an interesting twist here. This has all the makings of a cult classic. I can't wait to see what this director does next. I like his twisted style! Warning: Not for the timid!!!

Pure terror and excitement

[rachelelizabethwillis · 10/10 · 22 September 2014]

I enjoyed this film very much. It was terrifying, full of gore and even a splash of dark magic, but still grounded in human emotion and completely tasteful. The violent and sexual scenes were relevant to the story and well executed. And there were moments of subtle humor that gave a momentary reprieve from the heavy atmosphere. The acting was strong - I believed every scream. David Willis was exceptional as Buzz, possibly my favorite character. This film is one of the best of its genre that I've seen in a while; I was beginning to think there weren't any good horror writer/directors left out there. I highly recommend seeing it to anyone who can handle graphic images.

One of the best horror films I've seen recently

[torreyian · 9/10 · 22 October 2014]

This film proves that you don't need a big budget, or fancy special effects to create a great movie. I loved the way it kept shifting between sub-genres, shifting from slasher to revenge to... well, I'm not quite sure what I would call where it ended up. That shift kept me guessing the whole time, which is a rare and wonderful feature in a movie.

Although the gore is minimal and not particularly graphic, there is a considerable amount of nudity and fairly graphic sexual content that might make this an uncomfortable movie to watch with the family.

As for the acting, I had no real issues with it. The characters were not complex, as is to be expected in a horror film, and the actors handled them just fine.

If you enjoy horror movies, this one is definitely worth watching.

That actor David (with the wife pleaser)is splendid

[cstiglic-34092 · 10/10 · 5 May 2023]

Can't believe I've never seen David in any other movies before or after. He absolutely crushed his role. 100/10 film.

My review is too short so I'll keep typing. David is a legendary human being and a man who deserves the stars. Belt on or off

Watch this movie and then watch it again for its hints that you won't get the first. David willis is a star and should and will shine bright. If not for this performance for all his performance that are to come. An absolute angel amongst the scent bar.

Can't wait to see Dave on the big screen starring in a hit film that will win him an Oscar. Maybe a Tony. He's also in a new band check them out it's calls "van hellstink"