Themes: Serial Killers, Haunted By the Past, Mothers and Sons
Main Cast: Dan Grimaldi, Robert Osth, Ruth Dardick
Release Year: 1980
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A disturbed man descends into an inferno of madness in this thriller. Donald Kohler (Dan Grimaldi) was raised by an abusive mother who frequently punished him by thrusting his arms into open flame. As an adult, Kohler has developed a malign obsession with fire and works at a garbage incineration plant while still living at his mother's house. One night, Kohler returns home to discover his mother has died, but after a brief moment of freedom he begins hearing her voice commanding him to punish women who might tempt her errant son. Kohler builds a fireproof room in the house and starts luring women he meets at random to his home, where they're burned alive by the disturbed pyromaniac. Bobby (Robert Osth), one of his few friends at work, tries to help bring Kohler out of his shell and even fixes him up with a date, but an evening at a disco takes an ugly turn, revealing Kohler's deadly obsession. Don't Go In The House was the first film role for Dan Grimaldi, who later went on to play Patsy Parisi on the HBO series The Sopranos. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Charles Bonet; Bill Ricci - Vito; Tom Brumberger; Ken Kelsch; Patrick Williams; Ellen Hammill; Darcy Shean; Gail Turner; Kim Roberts; Dennis Hunt - Locker Room Worker
Credit
Sarah Wood - Art Director, Sharon Lynch - Costume Designer, Joseph Ellison - Director, Jane Kurson - Editor, Richard Einhorn - Composer (Music Score), Oliver Wood - Cinematographer, Ellen Hammill - Producer, Peter Zsiba - Set Designer, Joseph Ellison - Screenwriter, Ellen Hammill - Screenwriter, Joseph Masefield - Screenwriter
Don't Go in the House (also known as Pyromaniac in France) is a low budgetslasher film emulating Psycho that gained notoriety as a video nasty and remains banned in some countries. It focuses on the main character's abuse-driven psychoticism and paranoia/schizophrenic hallucinations, mostly unnoticed to those around him.
Donald "Donny" Kohler is deeply disturbed individual badly scarred (figuratively and literally) by burns inflicted on him by his mother. As a child, whenever he did something she saw as "wicked," she would hold his bare arms over a gas stove in an effort to "burn the evil out of him." Due to this he has developed a secret obsession with fire and human combustion. During his job at an incinerator, he observes a co-worker, Billy, catch on fire. Instead of going for help, he stares, mesmerized. When he returns home he finds his mother has died. While he is free from her possessiveness, the only life he has ever known is gone, and with it his chance for revenge against her. He sets out to avenge himself on every woman who bears a resemblance to his hateful parent with the aid of makeshift steel chains, a home-made flamethrower and a steel-paneled bedroom crematorium.
One of his earliest victims is local florist Kathy Jordan (Johanna Brushay). Befriending the harmless-looking man, Kathy escorts Donny back to his mother's house, where he knocks her unconscious with a piece of decor, ties her up and burns her to death with his flamethrower.
Despite some respectable critical notices, Don't Go In the House attracted controversy almost immediately because of its graphic depiction of the death of Kohler's first victim, and the touchy central theme of childhood abuse. The film was cut by almost three minutes when it was released in Britain in the winter of 1980, but an uncut version was released on video by the Arcade label in 1982 - knowingly or not, they advertised the release as "a true 'nasty' from Arcade", and it quickly wound up on the DPP's list of banned titles. The pre-cut British cinema version was released on video by the Apex label in April 1987.
Release
Released on a low budget on DVD at a time when home DVD players were first coming to the market and people were building libraries from the few movies available, this title reached audiences that might otherwise have passed it up for more mainstream options. It became a cult-classic as a result, much like Lana Clarkson's Barbarian Queen film and David Carradine's Death Race 2000. More recently, ScreamShow's Region 1 DVD presented a remastered widescreen print of the film with an audio commentary from star Dan Grimaldi, as well as a brief filmed interview with Grimaldi, theatrical trailers and TV spots and short 'unmatted' extracts from the full-screen VHS version.
