2015 October Horror Challenge #48 "The Last House on Cemetery Lane"

This movie is about a screenwriter who rents an old house hoping it will inspire him and help him write the new horror movie he's working on.  He discovers that their are ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night sharing his new house with him.  Typical setup for a haunted house flick, bit if it ain't broke, why fix it?

The movie doesn't seem to take itself too seriously.  The music is kind of kitschy Halloween music, which was kind of gun, and the actor who plays the screenwriter is likeable enough.  I would have loved this when I was a kid.  I had to laugh, though when a pop song started playing, and the lyrics are all about this movie.  Oh lord, it has its own theme song.  Snerk.

I'm glad this guy has enough money to rent a whole house for a vacation so he can write, and then do nothing all day but wander around and look at stuff in the house.  Lazy ass.  That screenplay ain't gonna write itself.  Then he wakes up because someone started playing an old record player loudly at night (at least it wasn't playing the theme song).  This is a scene that I've seen a bunch of times in other haunted house movies, so it's not even original.  Plus I think I had the "twist ending" figured out in five minutes, and if I'm wrong, I can't bring myself to care.  As it happens, I was partly right, but I think that's only because every idea in this movie comes from some other movie.

The movie is really disjointed, too.  I think the flashing images we keep seeing are supposed to be nightmares, but they just give me a headache and don't serve much purpose.  Plus the camera guy doesn't know where to focus his camera half the time, so every shot looks off-center.  It's a shame that the movie doesn't seem to be able to pull it together, because the acting isn't terrible, and it could have been fun, but it just winds up being plodding, inept, and annoying.   Once things actually start happening, theres some creepy stuff there, but it jyst winds up being too little, too late to save the movie.  And they went to all that effort to write a theme song,  too.  How sad.