Grotesque Grand Dame Rarity- Hollywood Horror House

            There are several obscure, crackpot films that I love to turn others on to. But how could I ever imagine one of my favorites- Hollywood Horror House, a twisted late-entry horror-hag film starring acting legend Miriam Hopkins, John Garfield Jr. and Joe Besser of Three Stooges fame, would ever pop up on Blu-ray in a restored 4k scan of the camera negative from Vinegar Syndrome? How is this possible? Vinegar Syndrome has flabbergasted me before with restored rarities on Blu-ray like of Dear, Dead Delilah starring Agnes Moorehead, The Corruption Of Chris Miller starring Jean Seberg and The Killing Kind, a wonderfully weird Curtis Harrington film starring Ann Sothern and a young John Savage.

            According to the entertaining audio commentary with director David DeCoteau and film historian David Del Valle, Hollywood Horror House never got a theatrical release and was dumped on video (looking muddy and awful under the title Savage Intruder). I picked it up decades ago in a used VHS bin and used to amaze friends with it. I even own the movie poster. But to see this unique oddity now is kind of a revelation. Especially in a 4k restoration from the film’s negative.

            Supposedly the film began shooting in 1969 but wasn’t finished until 1970. This was long after the crazy-crone cycle of films which began with Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? offered up fright films starring elderly Hollywood actresses. Miriam Hopkins (Becky Sharp), the 30’s film star who played bitchy southern belles and sparred on and off-screen with Bette Davis in several films (Old Acquaintance, The Old Maid), made her final film appearance in this demented shocker about a reclusive movie star- Katharine Packard- living in a creepy mansion (which was filmed at the famous Norma Talmadge estate).

Her staff includes a flinty-eyed assistant- Leslie, played by the legendary Gale Sondergaard, an elderly cook- Mildred (Florence Lake) and a housekeeper- Greta (Virginia Wing). Katharine is a hopeless alcoholic and after she tumbles down the stairs one night (after imagining throwing a fabulous party at her home), she ends up in a wheelchair and in need of a nurse.

            Meanwhile dismembered bodies of middle-aged women have been found in the Hollywood Hills. At the start of the film a boozy woman staggers home from the bar and a shadowy figure climbs in her window, hits her over the head with a metal pipe and merrily saws off her hand with an electric knife.

Former Three Stooge Joe Besser is driving a Hollywood tour bus pointing out the homes of famous stars and a hippie-type (John David Garfield) is hitching a ride at the back of the bus. He hops offs at the Packard estate, slicks up his appearance, and talks his way into becoming Katharine’s nurse. Leslie and Mildred are suspicious of him (especially since he first introduces himself as Laurel N Hardy before admitting his real name is Vic Valance). Greta, however is attracted to him, and so is Katharine, who giggles and flirts with him as he gruntingly lifts her into her wheelchair, wisecracking: “I remember you from the silent films- you must be Fatty Arbuckle.” 

The actor John David Garfield is a ringer for his famous actor father John Garfield (The Postman Always Rings Twice), but without the legendary on-screen tough guy’s talent, unfortunately. But he’s definitely good-looking, and has a kind of cocky, sexy, insouciant charm on screen. His character- Vic keeps a suitcase full of weapons in his closet, shoots up drugs, and has psychedelic flashbacks about his slutty mom. 

Katharine eventually seduces Vic into a sexual relationship and then spends wildly on a new wardrobe for him. He drives her down Hollywood Boulevard and Katharine laments, “the Boulevard has changed- all these hoodlums and queens.” He takes her to a drug-filled shindig where a midget offers her “coke, speed or meth,” to which Katharine imperiously replies, “the only trips I take are to Europe.” But she does invite the whole seedy gang back to her house for a wild, drunken party where she hallucinates she is Queen of the Christmas Parade.

  Hopkins even flashes an elderly tit in one scene where Vic is giving her a massage. The assistant Leslie demands that no “spirits are allowed in the house” to curb Katharine’s boozing, but Vic slips liquor to her and even begins to inject vodka into her veins with a hypodermic needle. After that things get pretty dark and deadly as Vic starts losing his marbles and beheading the staff.

This was the only feature film by Donald Wolfe and very little is known about it. It’s also very different from the other psycho-biddy films as a cross between Sunset Boulevard and Night Must Fall, but with a hippy, counterculture sensibility and surprising flashes of gore. 

But just holding this Blu-ray (in a limited edition embossed slipcover designed by Earl Kessler Jr.), containing such a rare, whacked-out film, fills me with mad joy.