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La Casa (lit: The House) is the name given to a collection of mostly unrelated horror films which were retitled and marketed in Italy as one single series. [1] They include movies from both the Evil Dead film series and the House film series.
When first released in 1981, the Sam Raimi-directed horror film The Evil Dead was distributed in Italy under the title La Casa, where it was a box office success. The 1987 sequel Evil Dead II was thus distributed under the similar title La Casa 2, and also did well in the Italian box office.
Attempting to capitalize on the successes of the Evil Dead films, Italian filmmaker Joe D'Amato produced an unofficial sequel titled La Casa 3 (later released in English-speaking countries as Ghosthouse). This in turn was followed by two more "sequels", La Casa 4 (also known as Witchery) and La Casa 5 (also known as Beyond Darkness ).
Two additional films were released in Italy under the La Casa series name, both unrelated to either the Evil Dead series or Joe D'Amato's films. House II: The Second Story was released in Italy as La casa di Helen, though it's sometimes referred to as "Le Casa 6", a movie that technically doesn't exist. Despite this, The Horror Show was released as La Casa 7. To add further confusion to the matter, The Horror Show was marketed as a sequel to House II in other non-US markets, using the title House III: The Horror Show, as had been the original intention for the US release during production. The producers had ultimately felt that The Horror Show was too dissimilar in tone to the previous instalments in the House franchise, and resolved to release it simply as The Horror Show in the US market. When The Horror Show was released in DVD in Italy, it was retitled La Casa III, taking the international House III as a reference and making the whole matter even more confusing. House IV was released in Italy as both House IV: Presenze impalpabili rather than La Casa 4 which was already taken, and Chi ha ucciso Roger?. The original House was released in Italy as Chi è sepolto in quella casa?, and was never included as part of the La Casa series.
The Evil Dead is a 1981 American independent supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi. The film stars Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly as five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in the woods, where they find an audio tape that, when played, releases a legion of demons and spirits. Four members of the group suffer from demonic possession, forcing the fifth member, Ash Williams (Campbell), to survive an onslaught of increasingly gory mayhem.
Evil Dead II is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, who co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel. The second installment in the Evil Dead film series, it is considered both a remake and sequel to The Evil Dead (1981). It stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, who vacations with his girlfriend to a remote cabin in the woods. He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him.
Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. The company produces low-budget independent films, or "B movies", primarily of the horror comedy genre, all geared exclusively to mature audiences. Many of them play on 1950s horror with elements of farce, parody, gore, and splatter.
Troll 2 is a 1990 independent dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Claudio Fragasso under the pseudonym Drake Floyd. It stars Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Connie McFarland, and Jason Wright. The plot follows Joshua Waits as he tries to save his family after the spirit of his deceased grandfather warns him that the town of Nilbog, where the family are spending their vacation, is inhabited by goblins who turn people into plant matter to eat them. It is the second installment of the Troll film series.
House II: The Second Story is a 1987 American comedy horror film written and directed by Ethan Wiley from an original story by Fred Dekker. It serves as the second installment in the House film series, and is a standalone sequel to the first movie. While the plots and characters are unrelated, House II involves a storyline centered around a new mansion with a supernatural connection. The tone is highlighted with a greater focus on comedy, with a tone even lighter than the original.
House III: The Horror Show is a 1989 American slasher film directed by James Isaac, from a script co-written by Allyn Warner and Leslie Bohem. Produced by Sean S. Cunningham, it serves as the third installment House film series. Presented as a standalone installment in the series, it stars Lance Henriksen and Brion James in the lead roles. Centering around Detective Lucas McCarthy, who arrests a serial killer known as Max "The Cleaver" Jenke; the plot revolves around the latter's return from the dead as a malicious spirit to terrorize the detective and his family in their house.
Evil Dead is an American comedy horror franchise created by Sam Raimi consisting of five feature films and a television series. The series originally revolves around the grimoire the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, an ancient Sumerian text that wreaks havoc upon a group of cabin inhabitants in a wooded area in Tennessee.
The Zombi series refers collectively to horror films that have been marketed, in various territories, as sequels to either George A. Romero's Italian-American film Dawn of the Dead (1978) or Lucio Fulci's Italian film Zombi 2 (1979). The latter was itself marketed by Italian distributors as a sequel to the former. A confusing history has emerged from the practice of reworking films as Zombi movies for release in different countries, a process during which a film may be given a different title in each country where it is released. In Britain and Thailand, these films were released as the Zombie Flesh Eaters series. In North America and Germany, the films became known as the Zombie series. The films maintained their original spelling, Zombi, when released in Australia and other select countries.
Full Moon Features is an American independent motion picture production and distribution company headed by B-movie veteran Charles Band. It is known for the direct-to-video series Puppet Master, Trancers, and Subspecies, as well as the film Castle Freak and the VideoZone featurette through 1989 to 2013.
Ghosthouse is a 1988 Italian horror film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. It co-starred Lara Wendel and Donald O'Brien. The plot focuses on a deserted house where the visions of a ghostly girl and her haunted doll wreak havoc on those who enter it.
Beyond Darkness is an Italian horror film written and directed by Claudio Fragasso.
Witchery is a 1988 Italian horror film directed by Fabrizio Laurenti and starring David Hasselhoff, Catherine Hickland, Hildegard Knef, Linda Blair, and Annie Ross.
Beyond the Darkness is a 1979 Italian exploitation horror film directed by Joe D'Amato. It follows Francesco Koch, an orphaned taxidermist who inherits a house in the woods where he lives with his housekeeper Iris, who is determined to become the new owner. After Iris kills his girlfriend Anna with a voodoo curse, Francesco steals her corpse from the local cemetery. He then commits murders connected to his enduring passion for her. A local undertaker investigates and meets Teodora, Anna's twin sister.
Absurd is a 1981 English-language Italian slasher film directed, lensed and co-produced by Joe D'Amato and starring George Eastman, who also wrote the story and screenplay.
The Ogre is a 1989 Italian television horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and written by Dardano Sacchetti. It was among four films made for the Italian television series Brivido Giallo. The film released outside of Italy as Demons III: The Ogre, where it was promoted as a sequel to Bava's films Demons and Demons 2.
In the Line of Duty, sometimes referred to as the Yes Madam series, is a series of girls with guns feature films produced by Hong Kong movie studio D & B Films which star, in the first two, Michelle Yeoh and, in subsequent installments, Cynthia Khan as a Royal Hong Kong Police Force officer who combines use of firearms with Kickboxing. The film Royal Warriors would be exported with the title In the Line of Duty and, due to its success, the film Yes Madam!, released one year prior, was retitled In the Line of Duty II: The Police Assassins as an export. Due to the overwhelming financial achievement of the films under the In the Line of Duty titles, D & B would start utilizing the In the Line of Duty title in their native Hong Kong market, with the third film being the first to originally use the In the Line of Duty name, which in turn would be retroactively applied to the two Michelle Yeoh vehicles. This would continue with the fourth entry before the series would revert to using individual unique titles.
Curse II: The Bite is a 1989 horror film directed by Frederico Prosperi, credited as Fred Goodwin. It is the second entry in the Curse tetralogy, a rebranding of unrelated films for marketing purposes.
Beyond the Door is a horror film series that consists of three originally unconnected films that were retitled to be part of a supernatural franchise for the American and English speaking markets, and one direct sequel to the 1974 original. Several loose connections between the first three films are that all three were Italian productions, Ovidio G. Assonitis produced parts I and III, child actor David Colin Jr. starred in Parts I and II.
The Curse pentalogy is a horror series of five originally unconnected films that were retitled to be part of a supernatural franchise for the American home video market. The series started in 1987 with The Curse. 1993's Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice is notable due to the fact the fourth film was originally made in 1988, predating the third film Curse III: Blood Sacrifice which was released in 1991. The only loose connections between the films are the first two are Italian productions produced by Ovidio G. Assonitis, otherwise the films are completely unrelated.
Return from Death is a 1992 Italian horror film directed by Aristide Massaccesi, and starring Donald O'Brien, Cinzia Monreale and Maurice Poli. In it, a crippled former boxer gets framed for beating a psychic woman into a coma, but the two form a telepathic bond during a neurological experiment, and her mind turns him into an unstoppable creature who wreaks vengeance on the real culprits. It was the final horror film directed by Massaccesi, also known as Joe d'Amato.
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