Grandmother's House — Grandmother's House (Blu Ray & DVD)
Grandmother's House appeared in 1988, this was the first film directed by Peter Rader- who went onto write Waterworld, as well as direct early 1990’s action film Hired To Kill, and mid-1990’s children fantasy sequel Escape To Witch Mountain. So I guess you can see he’s relatively versatile- and while Grandmother's House sometimes unbalances itself in it's shift of tone, and the un-even acting- it had me held until the end. Like other recent VS reissue Darkroom, this is another film produced by Nico Mastorakis- but really the horror elements here are very fleeting.
The film finds pre-teen & teen siblings David & Lyn going to live with their grandparents after their father dies- their grandparents live in the Californian countryside with its orange groves & tall palm tree-lined roads. At first, the elderly couple seem a little odd and strange- but as time goes on David starts believing that they might be serial killers. At times it very much brought to mind a lighter/ 80’s version of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit- and at one point we get the young pair hiding under a boarded crawl space, which of course is one of the more memorable scenes from The Visit.
The first hour or so of the film finds you wondering, along with young David, if the elderly couple are killers, is he miss-seeing things, or is something else going on. Doted through-out this we get a sleazy 50’s dressing teen boyfriend, quirky relatives, and sly humour. Then we get the fairly surprising twist (hello Shyamalan again) moving into the thriller/ light bloodless stalking, before the sudden & shocking WTH ending. Grandmother's House is far from a lost masterpiece & it does have issues, but as an example of tonally shifting 80’s fun ‘n’ light thrillers it’s ok.
The new print looks good & balanced- and really the setting of the film is quite distinctive with its blend of towering palm trees & orange groves, which is nicely enhanced by the new print. On the extras front, we get three stand-alone interviews which each last between nine & sixteen minutes- we have an interview with scream-queen Brinke Stevens, who in the film plays a fair low key role of a mysterious women who keeps appearing. There's an interview director Peter Rader, and one writer/cinematographer Peter Jensen- each is worthy enough, but the most worth is the one with the film's director- as it’s interesting to hear how his career moved from directing music videos to Grandmother's House , and all the challenges of making one's first film. We also get the original five-minute promo, which the director made to sell the film. And lastly, of course, we get an image gallery and original trailer.
If you go into Grandmother's House expecting either a run-of-the-mill elderly crazed stalker, or haunted/ creepy house picture- you’ll be disappointed. But if you enter the film expecting the unexpected, and enjoy tonally shifting genre films- I think you’ll get something from the film, and of course, VS do their normal great job with the film's reissue.