Film starts in 1840 Japan in which a man slashes his wife and her lover to death and the commits suicide. It's a very gory, bloody sequence. Then it jumps to present day...well 1982 to be precise. Ted (Edward Albert),wife Laura (Susan George) and their annoying little kid move to Japan for hubby's work. They rent a house and--surprise! surprise--it just happens to be the house where the murders took place! The three dead people are around as ghosts (the makeup is hysterically bad) and make life hell for the family.

Sounds OK--but it's really hopeless. There's a bloody opening and ending and NOTHING happens in between. There is an attack by giant crabs which is just uproarious! They look so fake--I swear I saw the strings pulling one along--and they're muttering!!!!! There's a pointless sex sequence in the first 20 minutes (probably just to show off George's body),another one about 40 minutes later (but that was necessary to the plot) and a really silly exorcism towards the end. The fight scene between Albert and Doug McClure must be seen to be believed.

As for acting--Albert was OK as the husband and McClure was pretty good as a family friend. But George--as always--is terrific in a lousy film. She gives this film a much needed lift--but can't save it. I'm giving this a 2 just for her and the gory opening and closing. That aside, this is a very boring film.

I last saw The House Where Evil Dwells on VHS, unaware that the beginning and the ending had suffered from a total of 34 seconds of cuts, removing the film's bloody decapitations and dismemberment (thanks BBFC!). No wonder I found it so underwhelming. Having just watched the film uncut, I can verify that the gory scenes that bookend the film are easily the highlights, although the sight of Susan George naked and a crab attack are also fairly memorable for different reasons.

The excellent opening scene, set in the middle of the 19th century, sees a samurai returning home to find his wife in the arms of another man. Sword in hand, the wronged warrior bursts into the house and slaughters the lovers, before committing hara-kiri (ritual suicide).

Cut to the present day: American magazine writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert),his wife Laura (Susan George, looking as lovely as always) and their daughter Amy (Amy Barrett) arrive in Japan, where friend Alex Curtis (Doug McClure) has arranged a house for them to live in while Ted writes an article. No prizes for guessing that it's the same house where the samurai went kill crazy with his katana, that the ghosts of all three dead people still haunt the building, or that history is about to repeat itself.

With superimposed spooks in bad make-up orchestrating Rentaghost-style supernatural occurrences, much of The House Where Evil Dwells is unmitigated cheeze, moderately entertaining for its sheer silliness. Director Kevin Connor gave us the excellent Amicus anthology From Beyond the Grave (1974) and that classic of the macabre, Motel Hell (1980),but let's not forget that he also gave us those campy craptastic fantasy flicks The Land That Time Forgot , At The Earth's Core, and Warlords of Atlantis (also starring the mighty Doug McClure). The House Where Evil Dwells is more camp than classic.

Household objects move by themselves, the ghosts possess the living to make them behave uncharacteristically, Laura sleeps with Alex (giving George another opportunity to shed her clothes),Amy is attacked by crabs, including two oversized clockwork crustaceans that can climb trees, and Ted witnesses an incident involving a samurai sword that would have had me saying 'Sayonara' and hopping on the next bullet train outta there.

Connor wraps thing up as expected, with Laura telling Ted about her infidelity, which leads to a wonderfully daft finale in which Albert and McClure do bad martial arts, before Ted lops off his old friend's noggin, stabs Laura with his sword, and kills himself.

I'm always on the look out for obscure and seldom-seen horror films and this one fits the bill nicely because it's so unusual. An unorthodox addition to the overworked 'haunted house' genre, the film's setting is Japan and the ghosts – instead of being the more typical poltergeists or what have you – are three transparent Japanese people, who run around in period gear (an idea copied by Peter Jackson for THE FRIGHTENERS) and cause spooky things to happen. Despite a high level of predictability, this film is generally above average, thanks to some imaginative moments and surprising scenes of action and violence.

The story goes that a happily married couple, Ted and Laura, move into a Japanese home dirt cheap because it's haunted. They learn of a terrible massacre occurring more than a century previously and are soon haunted by faces appearing in soup, things flying off walls, and Japanese chanting. One interesting aspect of the film is that events literally relive themselves as the ghosts possess various people and cause them to do unpleasant things. Laura eventually ends up having an affair with friend Alex Curtis and events lead towards a predictable – but nonetheless pretty mean-spirited – conclusion in which history relives itself.

The cast is familiar and helps add to the experience. Edward Albert may not be particularly exciting as the leading man but he does his job ably and has some good moments. Susan George gets to alternate between being sexy (stripping off for a number of sex scenes) and petrified depending on whether her character is possessed. But best of all is the appearance of cult B-movie man Doug McClure, here re-teaming with British director Kevin Connor for what would be their final pairing. Sadly Doug doesn't have a major role in the proceedings, but he does get to take part in a fantastic fight at the film's climax which is just like the old days and very exciting.

The film goes through all the usual motions – possessions, exorcisms, gore – but portrays events in a slightly off-kilter way to make them seem more interesting. There's a scene where some giant crabs (so big you can see the wires) attack the young girl which is very well done and actually had me creeped out – despite the wires these crabs really do look menacing so kudos to the effects guys. There are some pretty violent moments, including a hilariously cheesy decapitation, and the film gets my recommendation for following through to the expected finale without offering any Spielberg touches or happy endings. Although it isn't great, THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS does make you feel involved with the characters in hand as well as providing the necessary thrills and chills. So it gets my thumbs up.