From the director of "Troll 2" comes this moderately amusing haunted house / exorcism movie. Gene Lebrock ("Metamorphosis") stars as Father Peter, a reverend who moves with his family into a house of horrors. Not surprisingly, terrible things happened on the same grounds many years ago, and Father Peter must team up with the intense Father George (David Brandon) to take on the forces of evil and save his son Martin (who's played by Michael Stephenson, a.k.a. the young hero of "Troll 2").

Flagrantly bad acting combines with director Claudio Fragassos' extravagant efforts to show the audience a good time. Fragasso gives this silly movie as much atmosphere as he possibly can, but the screenplay, which he wrote with Rossella Drudi, is pretty inane. The music score by Carlo Maria Cordio is over the top, which seems like an attempt to distract the audience from the fact that we're not seeing anything particularly interesting or unusual in this movie. The visual effects are variable, the makeup effects not that bad at all.

The hunky Lebrock is very much a stiff, but "Friday the 13th" series fans might enjoy seeing actress Barbara Bingham (Mrs. Van Deusen in "Jason Takes Manhattan") in the role of his wife. Brandon does an awful lot of gnawing on the scenery. One person who looks like they're having fun is Mary Coulson, who plays the gnarly old crone Bette.

One of the producers was an uncredited Joe D'Amato; the costume designer was Laura Gemser.

Five out of 10.

After moving into a new house, a priest and his family find themselves terrorized by a series of strange supernatural phenomenon that points to the house being haunted by a malevolent demon seeking human souls to deliver to a Satanic entity and turns to a disgruntled colleague to save his family.

This here wasn't too bad of a haunted house effort. That's one of the most intriguing aspects here as the film wastes no time setting up this facet in the first half. Almost immediately after moving in, the daughters' displays of supernatural happenings give this a great introduction to the kind of wild affair to the later haunting scenes. Not only running through the usual trappings of toying with lights, sudden outbursts of wind blowing through windows or wreaking havoc with electronics and household utensils but also scalding their faces or causing dreams where they appear as demonic brides attempting to lure the family away. That leads nicely into the film's stellar supernatural action scenes. The first encounter with the demonic brides appearing out of the walls and chasing them through the house features several chilling scenes of the mass of creatures through the fog before being driven away, while the later sequence where they return to chase the children eventually taking one of them to their world offers the creepiest moments in the film. The finale, where the two priests come together to battle the main figure, really generates plenty of wild action as the religious confrontations for why they're fighting lead into their non-stop battles. Featuring the exorcism of the son, the battle with the female demon and spectacular burning-down-the-house conclusion, the wildness here comes through nicely while also giving this one the chance for atmospheric touches and some ghastly ghoul make-up on the creatures. These are what hold the film up as there are a few flaws here. Among the biggest issues here are the completely nonsensical ideas that are peppered throughout the film. The whole connection between the executed woman and the events at the house are never given as she's never responsible for what was said to be responsible in the house or why the house was possessed in the first place. It's also quite short on why the family was there as it seemed there was a purpose in them being brought in but as for why nothing was done with the house until they moved in is incredibly strange and confusing. That leads to the other problematic issue here where the film feels somewhat overlong not through pacing but continuous action. The finale is especially guilty of this, ranging from the possession and exorcism of the kid to the temptation of the fallen priest and finally having the older reluctant priest coming into play to stop the demonic entity. Hardly any of these storylines come about with any kind of logical narrative build-up from what's going on before making for a somewhat overlong time here. Along with the films' cheesiness, these are what hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, intense themes of children-in-jeopardy and Language.

Explanation for this title. Evil Dead was La Casa in Italy. Then, Evil Dead II was La Casa 2. But, Ghosthouse, from Umberto Lenzi, was La Casa 3. Witchery, from Fabrizio Laurenti was La Casa 4. And this, the fifth.