Coming from director/writer Brendan Rudnicki (The Last Cabin), The House on Haunted Grounds is a found footage horror that uses the idea of a paranormal investigation crew investigating a possible haunted house. I felt this was a better made film than the last found footage I viewed from this director, but a few too many similarities to other films of this type I have seen from this sub genre of horror, prevented me from really loving this.
The cast and crew of a paranormal investigation show - 'The Otherside' have headed to the house where a notorious serial killer once operated from. Not only are they the first ones to be at the place since the police shot and killed the killer some months or years previously, the house is also due to be demolished the following week. The hosts; Amy (Logan Wallace) and Tony (Andrew Thomas - Shadows of Bigfoot) intend to spend the night there, alongside cameraman Dylan (Dylan Devane - The Last Cabin), and superfan Kate (Cashmere Monique - The Last Cabin), with I.T guy Bradley (Stuart Maxheimer - A Cold Grave) staying back in the van to monitor the camera feeds. They soon get evidence that there may actually be supernatural activity occurring in the house, as the stakes get higher and higher, they must decide if it is worth sticking around to capture their footage or if self preservation is a better idea.
This immediately brought back strong memories of last year's Paranormal Investigations, a similar cast of characters, a similar concept of an episode of a show being filmed, and even an identical death scene to one that is shown here. That film was presented as if it was an actual episode, complete with editing. Here, aside from an intro sequence, the footage is shown as if it was the raw unedited footage, rather than edited together. The film is of course edited, but it is made up of both footage that would have made it onto the show and everything else around that. A few similarities include a bickering cast (that features again the male host being a problem), as well as the computer guy being bullied. It all felt so familiar, I'm not implying this was actually a copy of that other found footage, but the similarities really pulled me out of the picture, a shame, as this was overall a much better made horror than The Last Cabin. Normally I feel if a film is found footage then it should stick religiously to that format. Here, there are the occasional scenes that are traditionally shot. The effective prologue sequence of the cops discovering the killer in the basement of the house was one such part, and then near enough every scene shot in the van was also traditionally done. In total though, that was about 5% of the overall film, and it wasn't jarring having the two styles occasionally side by side.
The horror begins early on, and rather than a gradual ramp-up of terror over the seventy minute runtime, there is instead constant things happening. At first, ghostly blood stained figures who appear extremely briefly on camera, later it ramps up to possession, objects moving on their own, and a wild Ouija board sequence. This was mainly impressive to see on screen. Some parts didn't work quite as well, a later mannequin scene could have worked if not for the lengthy build up to it, and the Blair Witch moment of a character silently standing in the corner of a room facing the wall felt really derivative. Other moments worked much better, especially with how physical some of the horror is. Apart from the identical looking (to Paranormal Investigations) death scene of one character (which wasn't as well executed here), there are some neat moments that feature much more blood than you might expect. Deaths are near all on-screen and they can be pretty messed up in the best possible way! I won't ruin any of those here, but at least one had me saying "Jesus" out loud when I was watching it; lovely stuff!
I thought The House on Haunted Grounds was a better made film than Rudnicki's previous effort. For me, there was barely any complaints to be had with how the horror was integrated here, there were perhaps a few too many jump scares of ghostly figures suddenly appearing or hovering unseen in the background, but I thought the special effects were great, and it was all edited together in a neat package. Being a found footage, the story is quite basic, and for me personally, it really suffered for being so similar to that other film I saw last year. With a decent location, great effects, and some neat moments of horror, this was still an enjoyable, if unoriginal horror. The House on Haunted Grounds is now available on transactional VOD platforms, with it coming to streaming platform BloodStream later this year. To support this new release, BloodStream currently features a curated collection of Rudnicki's previous films, including The Last Cabin, Into the Forest, and Forest of Death.
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