Ghosthouse (1988)
An evil spirit buried inside of a doll haunts a group of people that enter a house.
Genre
Characters/Groups
Henriett - Kristen Fougerousse
Henriett's Mother - Susan Muller
Henriett's Father - Alain Smith
Lieu Tenent - William J. Devany
Cementery Custodian - Hernest Mc. Kimnoro
Character thumbnails with links to profiles
Detailed Synopsis
On May 23rd, 1967, a cat screams as Henriett's Father calls for Henriett in their large house. As he searches in the basement he finds the body of a dead cat. He finds Henriett holding a bloody pair of scissors and scolds her for killing the cat. As punishment he tells her he is leaving her in the basement with the lights off. After Henriett's Father leaves, Henriett grabs a doll that was hidden and caresses it. Henriett's Father tells Henriett's Mother that he doesn't understand what has come over Henriett. Henriett's Father screws in a light bulb which expands and explodes. An arm holding an axe appears behind Henriett's Father and the axe strikes him in the head, killing him. Henriett's Mother calls for Henriett's Father, sees him dead and is then blinded by an exploding mirror before having her throat slashed with a knife.
Twenty years later, Martha is walking to her apartment in Boston, Massachusetts. Meanwhile Paul is taking calls from his ham radio talk show. Later, Paul tells Martha that last night while he was trying to reach someone in Denver, his radio started to garble and then he heard someone calling for help and a scream. That night the radio produces the same sound and Paul records it. A voice asks "who are you, what do you want? For God sake somebody help me!" and then a man's scream followed by a woman's scream. Paul at first considers calling the police, but Martha suggests they try and track down where the signal came from. The next day Martha and Pail head to Brewster, Massachusetts where the signal came from. As they are on their way they pick up a hitchhiker named Pepe who they drop off at the Golden Rooster. After they drop off Pepe, Martha notices he stole five dollars from her using a skeletal hand trick. They arrive at Henriett's house and meet Valkos who tells them no one lives at the house. They enter the house and find it abandoned and covered in cobwebs and upstairs they find a CB radio. They are surprised by Jim who tells them that the CB radio is his and he is at the house with his brother Mark, Mark's girlfriend Susan and his sister Tina. Paul plays the recording for Jim and tells him the voice on the recording sounds like him. Jim admits the voice sounds like him and the scream sounds like Tina, but denies using the radio to send it. While Paul and Jim put the CB radio antenna up on the roof, Martha continues to search the house and is shocked when jars explode and other supernatural events occur. Outside, Tina, Susan and Mark hear Martha's scream. Paul and Jim run into the basement and find Martha in shock and they help her outside of the house. The group start debating outside what to do, with Paul saying he thinks they are in danger and Mark suggesting it may be supernatural. Paul suggests that both he and Jim tune to the same radio frequency that night to see what happens. As they are discussing their plan Valkos watches from the trees.
At 11 o'clock Paul turns off the radio when nothing happens, but as Tina is making coffee the television inside of her bother's RV turns on and Henriett and the doll appear on the tv. Tina tries to turn off the tv, but the image remains. Jim and Mark hear a laughing noise and Jim goes downstairs to investigates while the RV begins to shake. As Jim is investigates the basement he sees a spinning fan blade and then Henriett and her doll. He repeats the same words he said in the recording and is then killed when a fan blade flies off and slashes him in the throat. Tina runs into the basement and sees Henriett and the doll and then Jim's body. As Mark is running downstairs he is confronted by a Doberman Pinscher. Valkos enters the basement with a cleaver and attacks Tina. Mark throws a candle holder at the Doberman and the candle holder passes through it. He then climbs out the house window and helps Tina before Valkos runs away. Mark follows Valkos into a shed and Valkos impales him with a pitchfork. Paul, Martha and Susan arrive at the house and Paul chokes Valkos unconscious. Paul runs back into the house and finds Jim dead. Valkos then escapes. Paul, Mark and Susan take Mark to the hospital while Martha stays with Tina. Martha sees a light turn on in the house and she grabs a meat skewer and enters the house. She enters a child's bedroom and after opening a trunk she finds a picture of Henriett and the doll. She touches the doll and the toys fly around in the room and the doll tries to strangle her. Paul hears Martha scream and enters the room and Martha tells him the doll attacked her. The next day the Coroner leaves the house after telling Lieu Tenent he has finished looking at Jim's body. Lieu Tenent tells Paul and the others about the murder of Henriett's parents. He tells them the murders went unsolved just like the murder of Henriett, who was found later locked in the cellar, dead. Paul tells Mark and Susan that he and Martha are leaving and suggests they leave too.
Paul uses his computer to figure out that he picked up telepathic messages over the radio. He continues to play the tape for the computer and the computer picks up the word burial. He calls Lieu Tenent and is told that Henriett's Father worked for a funeral home. Tina sneaks out of the RV and is scared by Pepe who uses his trick skeletal hand to grab her. Pepe then enters the house and starts searching for things to take. Paul and Martha return to Brewster and stop at the Gaffey Funeral Home. He speaks with the Mortician who tells him Henriett's Father owned a funeral home and he used to steal objects from the dead including a doll shortly before his death. Valkos enters the funeral home after Paul leaves and after asking Mortician what he told Paul, Valkos hits him with a hammer and then locks him in a casket. Coroner tells Lieu Tenent that there is no way Jim was killed by Valkos due to the angle of the wound. Susan and Tina argue about her seeing Pepe enter the house and Mark goes inside the house to settle who is right and then comes out and says no one is in there. Tina sneaks back into the house and finds Pepe's fake skeletal hand. Mark rides his motorcycle into town to buy a part to fix the RV and Susan goes inside the house to wash off some grease.
As Tina is searching the house she is cut in half by a large blade. Paul goes inside the Cementery Custodian's shack to talk with him while Martha stays in the truck. Paul finds Cementery Custodian drunk and unresponsive in the shack. Mark returns and Martha tells him he and the others have to leave the house. Valkos chases Martha into the cemetery. The Cementery Custodian eventually wakes up and tells Paul that bad things happen when souls can't find peace and that more people have died throughout the years. Martha runs into a crypt and after Paul finds her missing, he searches for her. Martha finds Henriett's coffin and is attacked by a corpse. Paul hears Martha crying out and sees Valkos dead hanging from a rope from a tree and he frees Martha. Mark runs back into the house and sees Henriett and the doll, and Tina dead before he falls through the floor into a vat of bubbling white liquid. Susan finds Pepe dead and when she hears Mark stumbling towards her, she impales him with shears, killing him. Paul overhears Susan asking for help and runs to the crypt with a gas can. The ghost dog chases Susan into a room and a maggot covered corpse appears. Paul opens Henriett's coffin and pours gasoline onto Henriett's perfectly preserved body and the doll. Just before Susan is about to be stabbed by the maggot corpse, the body of Henriett and the doll are engulfed in flames and disappear. Susan leaves on her motorcycle after Paul talks with Lieut Tenent and then Paul and Martha leave. Later Martha is in Boston walking around when she sees the doll in a toy shop and as Paul is crossing the road, he is hit by a bus.