Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Michael_Elliott The House That Vanished (1973) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Model Valerie (Andrea Allan) is with her rather worthless boyfriend as they drive around in the fog. They come upon a house and the boyfriend goes inside to steal from it but soon the two of them witness a murder. The next day Valerie manages to get back home but she hasn't heard from her boyfriend and she fears that he's dead so with the help from a friend she tries to track down that mysterious house.José Ramón Larraz's THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED is a film that seems to be remembered thanks in large part to its American promotional material. The trailer and poster of the film played off the same tagline (It's Only a Movie... It's Only a Movie...) that made Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT a hit. The promotional material on this film is quite impressive and it's clear that it worked because the film gained a cult following despite the fact that it's really not that good.There are some good things to be found here with one of them being the atmosphere. I thought the director did a nice job at building up a rather sinister atmosphere and this here was without question the highlight of the picture. Another nice thing was the fog and its thickness as the couple drive through it. I thought these scenes were rather effective and the idea of a house being hidden by the fog was something I liked. I also thought Allan was quite attractive and helped keep you somewhat glued to the film.As far as the rest goes, it's pretty bad. The worst thing about the film and what eventually kills it is the fact that the pacing was just awful. The film has a very slow pace, which is fine if you're able to capture some sort of slow-burn but that's not what happens here. The film continues to grow more and more boring as it comes to an end and what's worse is the fact that it's really not too hard to figure out who the killer is. We're treated to some bloody violence and plenty of nudity but this here can't stop the boring feeling.THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED wasn't as awful as some make it out to be but there's no question that the atmosphere was wasted.

tobermory2-1 This is less a review of the movie, "The House That Vanished" as it is a response to the reviewer(s) who liked this movie. I was wondering what was the worst movie I ever paid to watch and without hesitation it was this movie. The only reason I saw it is that friends and I wanted to see an "R" movie before we turned 18. It was clear from the start that the writer and director had no regard for women, decency nor their audience. The original title, "Scream... and Die," pretty well sums up the plot as well as most of the direction for the film. The only reason I would give more than the one star this kind of anti-social material deserves is that I still remember two scenes vividly, so something must have been right. One was an endless slashing to death of a topless yet vapid woman-- not a happy memory-- and the other was when our heroine was in the cellar/attic and you get well and truly set up for a good scare. Give this pitiful effort a BIG pass and you'll be a happier movie-goer.

MARIO GAUCI This is the fourth film of Joseph (the Anglicized version of Jose' Ramon) Larraz I'm watching and possibly the most conventional and least rewarding so far. For the record, the film shares its screenwriter Derek Ford (who later became an exploitation director himself) with a film I've also just watched for the first time during this Halloween challenge – Peter Sykes' VENOM (1971; see above).The heroine is a gorgeous blonde played by Andrea Allan: thankfully, 1970s British genre cinema was virtually a haven for such starlets, even if only a handful ever made it to the top (while the greater majority were hardly ever heard of again)! Like VAMPYRES (1974), nudity here is bountiful (in all senses of the word) including a surprisingly steamy encounter between the disturbed sculptor/murderer (Karl Lanchbury, who also appeared in Larraz's subsequent erotic vampire flick) and his mentor/aunt(!) – although the ever iconoclastic Luis Bunuel would go one better the following year in THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY by showing a young man sleeping with his own grandmother!!Incidentally, it seemed silly to me to have the heroine here jumping straight into a romantic attachment with a complete – to say nothing of wimpish – stranger (who, conveniently, turns out to be the killer!) after having not just witnessed a cold-blooded murder but also having had her unreliable boyfriend disappear on her for good! The expected 'red herring' character is here supplied courtesy of Peter Forbes-Robertson's eccentric birdwatcher neighbor.Incidentally, the photographic models milieu is extremely typical of such European thriller fare – and the film's bland treatment of it certainly adds nothing new to the formula. Also quite inevitably, the film went through various title changes: the original one was SCREAM…AND DIE! but, apart from the one I watched it under which is listed above, it was further hyperbolically dubbed PSYCHO SEX FIEND.

vampyres-2 SCREAM...AND DIE! (or "The house that vanished" (1973))is the unknown piece of horror and sex that the master José Ramón Larraz did in England in the seventees. It's an erotic thriller with psychopatic murderer (Karl Lanchbury) perfomed by a beautiful model called Valerie (terrific Andrea Allan)involved in a haunting mistery and sadistic murders occurred in a isolated manor in the forest at midnights. Scream and die has an excellent and very particular quality in images and atmosferes. The movie is slow, yes, but this thing is normal in Larraz's movies: the story is very slow and predictable, but it's too sexy (the love scenes are really good and erotic) and brutal sometimes, and has the mark from the director of masterpieces as "Vampyres" and "Symptoms", both from 1974. The fog, tne night, the sounds of the killer walking with his black gloves following Valerie, the anguish in her face in her firsts shots, the slowly music give to the film a personal sight. The first murder seen by the hidden Valerie and husband as intimate witnesses and the escape from the manor are a classic composition of horror shots, wonderfully executed by the "voyeurisitic filmmaker" with a rare and genuine talent. It's a really brutal moment of sophisticated murder and "naïve" sex. Scream and die has the very personal "touch" of the catalanian director, all the constants that are in the most part of his baroque, sensual and horrific world (Emma puertas oscuras,La muerte incierta,Vampyres, Symptoms,Estigma,Whirpool, Deviation or Deadly manor) are present in here. The spiral of terror and tension grows very slowly -step by step- describing the world of this sexy model for fashion photographers in a continuated state of danger. Larraz creates a really personal style in a very traditional thriller that must be remembered by the tension,the british locations in Kent in winter,the quiet and dead moments of inusually fascination, the use of the photography, the artistic colors and the incredible dark shots of nights, the typical "english" fog, the horror moments and the clever sex that impressed me a lot in my adolescence. Scream and die has a kind of elegance in the horror genre that others horror thrillers hasn't. All the personal obsessions of José Larraz are here in a fine lesson of cinematography in his best period of his career, the british period. The fans of José Larraz need to know his firsts features, as "Whirpool" (1970) and "Deviation" (1971)-nobody has said anything more specific about these movies? (Please: more information and reviews in IMDB or other places,webs, etc.) and his last contribution tot the terror lately in "Deadly manor"(Savage lust, 1990)produced by his old british friend Brian Smedley-Aston. When the fans of José Ramón Larraz, Brian Smedley-Aston (editor of "Performance" ,etc.), his actresses and his horrific world will have a web or a personal page about the director? Where are the fans of this spanish/british filmmaker?. Goodbye!