The Dead Come Home

The Dead Come Home, an independent low budget (around $200000 as the director recalls) feature, sees a group of young people arrive at an isolated house to fix it up - one of them has just purchased the place and it's in serious need of renovation.  What they don't initially know is that it was once the home of a crazy old homicidal woman, and prior to entry one of them thoughtlessly trashes her gravestone.  This somehow brings her back to life - the house becomes supernaturally sealed with the group inside, and unable to find means of escape they begin meeting their respective ends.  There is an additional twist: each one of the new victims also comes back to help reap the old lady's vengeance for her.

Probably better known for the fact that Troma picked it up not long after its production, and retitled it as Dead Dudes in the House, marketed for VHS with very misleading cover photography.  It was later distributed by another company as I understand, under the much more preferable title of The House on Tombstone Hill, although when James Riffel completed (in 1988) and initially sought distribution, it was known as The Dead Come Home, and that's what Vinegar Syndrome have effectively restored it as here (although you get other storage/display options - see below).  The film is surprisingly effective: having the Troma moniker at the beginning usually gives me alarm bells (they're not exactly the mark of quality, although their juvenile sense of humour does appeal to some).  It wastes no time in getting the group to the house, and soon establishes an uncanny atmosphere as they become incarcerated in what is clearly an extremely creepy real location (indeed, one of the actors interviewed for the disc confirms that the place put the wind up him).  Killings are quite gory and well executed for the budget, and the outcome suggests a fairly unique imagination behind the project.  Obviously there is a slight tongue-in-cheek element to all of this (I can't think of any other stalk-and-slash films where the teens are terrorised and bumped off by a rickety old lady) but it generates for itself quite a sinister atmosphere.  Incidentally, I did think the beautiful daughter of the old woman could have been put to greater use: her character's return from death is of limited value to the story, then she proves to be an odd loose end in the narrative (her fate remains unexplained).

Vinegar Syndrome have scanned the Super 16mm negative at 2K to achieve amazing results - the image is vivid, colourful, with a vast field of natural grain that is quite pleasing to behold.  You could be forgiven, if you weren't already aware, for initially mistaking this as a 35mm production - it looks wonderful projected.  The stereo soundtrack is mastered, probably overkilled, at 96KHz, with strong resonance throughout, although it does betray restraints in the recording.  On the extras side there's a near half-hour interview with three of the main actors, where they recall their experiences quite well.  You also get about four minutes worth of production stills, plus a forty two minute audio interview with Riffel (played against stills from the movie).  This sounds like it was recorded from a phone call, the quality therefore being difficult to warm to, and shrill.  Despite that technical problem, the content proves to be a fascinating and revealing insight into the film, covering the unusual method with which Riffel acquired funds, circumstances prior to and around the Troma pick up, etc.  I was just going to sample this, because of the troublesome quality, but I ended up listening to the whole thing - a great extra.  The cover of the Blu-ray/DVD standard case is reversible, with the Tombstone Hill poster on one side, and the awful Dead Dudes iteration the other.  If you get the limited version you have a high quality slipcase with Tombstone Hill on one side (and its spine), or The Dead Come Home on the other.  So in all there are three places you could put this on your alphabetised shelf.  The slipcase edition is limited to 1500 units, and a cool buy in my opinion: the film itself is better than I anticipated and it's been treated with the usual VS respect.