Review of The House of Clocks

Lucio Fulci is one of the most important Italian horror film-makers for sure but by the tail end of his career the quality of his output got pretty bad. The House of Clocks falls into this bracket unfortunately. It would only be fair to say that part of the issue in this one was that it was a made-for-TV production, so it was of a noticeably lesser budget than he was used to. Production values are consequently bargain basement in every respect, which does nothing to help this film in any way. Interestingly, despite being a made-for-TV movie, it seemingly was never actually shown on television due to its explicit violence. There are several cheap gore sequences punctuated throughout and do at the very least alleviate the tedium at least to some extent. The story is about three thieves who break into the house of an elderly couple. Trouble is, these oldsters are psychopaths and their house of clocks has supernatural powers with the ability to reanimate the dead.

The story is certainly unusual enough to garner at least some credit. But it's just not really executed in a very good way at all. For the most part it's kind of tedious in actual fact, while it never looks anything other than cheap with very little in the way of atmosphere. By the late 80's the Italian film industry was struggling financially and it's certainly an indicator that the man who made so many good to excellent genre pics ended up working on a low quality TV production such as this. Overall, this one can really be recommended to Fulci completists only.