Made at the tail end of the swinging 1960s. The Haunted House of Horror is a tedious slasher film.

Some young people have a party, get drunk and decide to visit a haunted house somewhere in the countryside. Apparently some years ago, someone manically killed the people in the house.

They get more drunk in the house, hold a seance and later someone meets a grisly demise. The others cover up the death. A few days later the police get involved as a man is reported missing.

The others go back to the house at a later date to recreate what happened that night.

In the meantime, a stalkerish jilted older ex boyfriend of one of the younger women had gone to the house to retrieve an item and he also meets a gruesome fate.

The movie is hokum with a lot of padding and not much scares. Although the first stabbing death is gory.

It stars Frankie Avalon who was brought over to the UK and he looks too old to be a teenager. The most well known of the younger cast is Richard O Sullivan.

Dennis Price lends a bit of dignity as the cop investigating the missing person.

It is a dull film, nonsense script and some hysterical acting. It did foreshadow the slasher film craze of the 1980s.

This is one of those films with a pretty poor reputation that means I haven't got around to watching it until now. I wasn't missing much. THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR – one hell of a title that has little to do with the film itself – is notable as one of the earliest examples of the slasher genre, the sort of film where lots of pretty young folk are offed one by one by an unknown killer. It has assured direction by Michael Armstrong, who afterwards went to the continent to shoot grisly witchcraft horror MARK OF THE DEVIL, and a cast of youthful actors who were once big names in their heyday.

Frankie Avalon, a one-time singer, has one of the major roles playing his typical character – young, handsome, popular with the ladies, charismatic to boot. He could almost be said to be playing himself. Then there's an obnoxious Richard O'Sullivan, before he found fame on television, and red herring George Sewell, who lurks around looking shifty a lot but that's about it. Dennis Price pops up as an inspector but he only gets a couple of scenes himself, while Jill Haworth's sole contribution is to sit around and look pretty, which she does well enough.

Unfortunately, although the film looks good, it goes nowhere. The script is sub-par and the story plodding. It takes an age for the set-up to get going, and then things look like they're going to pick up with an exceptionally shocking and gory murder sequence about halfway through. Then things kick back to first gear and nothing else happens until the denouement, which itself consists of a couple of people chatting in a room for about ten minutes while suspense builds. There's more gore at the climax, and then everything's left unfinished, so it feels as if they ran out of money.

Aside from those two murders, there's nothing to remember about this movie. The characters are trite, self-centred, and rather irritating, particularly in O'Sullivan's case, and the incredibly annoying Veronica Doran is another detraction the film has. There's far too little incident taking place, which would be all right if this was an exercise in atmosphere building, like some of the Italian gothics from the same era, but it's not. I enjoyed looking at the colourful '60s costumes and sets, but that enjoyment only went so far – and in the end I was just sitting, waiting for something – ANYTHING – to happen. It never did, which is why this one's a dud.

You can't expect much since coming out of the minds of these 20-something swinging London singles in this misfire about their crashing a haunted house after a boring party. One of the members of their group is brutally murdered and they bury his body on the grounds. There's a ridiculous subplot about one of the girls who had earlier left the party being stalked by a jealous former older lover (and stupidly getting into his car every time he offers her a ride),and he stalks her to the mansion, briefly going in and following her out. When the murder victim is reported as a missing person, the police get involved in the case, and the gang returns to the mansion to try and figure out what happened and if indeed any of their group is responsible for the killing.

This often dull horror yarn stars Frankie Avalon and Jill Haworth, but they are merely part of a large ensemble and really have nothing of consequence other than their celebrity name should be in this film. the only decent effect in this are some of the shadows which makes the group look like goals as they enter the house. there are also moments where it is nothing but a conversation, repeated information that is already been discussed, and that makes it even more painful to get through.

This starts off stupidly with the group leaving their car lights on when they park in a lengthy distance from the mansion. Everything done in this movie has been done better in other horror films, such as creeping hands coming out of nowhere (usually with a ridiculous twist),and by the time it gets to the ending, you may not even care (if you've lasted this long) about what exactly occurred.