The House on Skull Mountain

**½

While I do think the selection of Victor French as the hero and Jean Durand as the villain should perhaps have been reversed, I am a fan of the 70s “Blaxploitation” (perhaps looking for a new genre title now) films involving Voodoo elements and incorporating horror characters/themes (I am a fan of Blacula and its sequel co-starring Pam Grier, Scream Blacula Scream). While I prefer the likes of Sugar Hill (1974) where Marki Bey gets even with Robert Quarry, in an urban setting (the zombies are a throwback to those conjured in the 40s), to House on Skull Mountain (1974) which takes place on a mansion located on a mountain (rather neat matte painting put to use often in the film as travel down it offers the potential of grave vehicular danger), I guess there is some fun to be had just the same. I admit that seeing Voodoo often used ominously and presented as frightening might be ignorant, just the same the ending features Lorena Christophe (Janee Michelle) used as a pawn and a maidservant, Louette (Ella Woods), bound to a post and stabbed by a dagger during a ceremony where the participants dance about and often scream. Snakes are involved as is chanting with skulls and Voodoo iconography prevalent. 

Durand is a butler and cook, named Tomas, seeing to the needs of dying Pauline Christophe (Mary J Todd McKenzie), not too fond of her letters being mailed to ancestors (French’s anthropologist, Michelle, Mike Evans’ Philippe, and Xemona Clayton’s Harriet) set to inherit her estate and wealth. French’s Andrew Cunningham is a professor of anthropology in Maine who was left on the doorstep of an orphanage, looking to understand his past through the visit to Skull Mountain. He was knowledgeable of Voodoo through an interest and study of the religion which helps when a Wanga is found by each body as Tomas starts to bump each great grandchild of Pauline off so that few would benefit from her inheritance, instead hoping he would be beneficiary through a marriage he’d be using a spell in order to achieve. That Cunningham—the white anthropologist—is the hero is kind of jarring. Just the same the cast is majority African-American and only Tomas appears to be a heel, secretively performing Voodoo rituals in order to harm the remaining family members tied to Pauline. It is even perhaps implied that the Voodoo ceremony Cunningham encounters while trying to rescue Lorena (where Louette is tormented by Tomas and another young practitioner who pass around the dagger with the possibility of being stabbed before actually doing so) could or could not have been real.

Whatever the case the film features hooded figures appearing as well as images of skulls to the four great grandchildren. Evans—of 70s television classics, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and All in the Family—is rather an obnoxious, sexist, aggressive, and unfiltered sort, nearly driving Michelle off the road when they first arrive up the mountain! He is always touchy-feely with the ladies, often making snide, sexual comments and gestures, even worse when he’s soused. Lorena is very well spoken, sophisticated, patient, and tolerant of Philippe’s antics, hitting it off well with Cunningham who is soft-spoken, polite, and level-headed. Harriet is kind, unassuming, and pleasant. Harriet is a maidservant herself, having arrived with no idea of her relation to Pauline. Tomas simply wants her out of the way because of her being one too many people set to inherit the estate. Evans outstays his welcome, trying to cop a feel from Lorena, actually grabbing Louette’s ass (!) and cupping her face as he comments on her looks! He’s an asshole from the moment you see him until he takes a walk right into a hatchway leading to another hidden area of the mansion.

You have Voodoo dolls stabbed with pins, bleeding skulls with candles lit, and snakes crawling about bodies; House on Skull Mountain goes all out with the presence of Voodoo and Tomas practices off to himself in the hopes of securing Michelle as his bride. But Cunningham will use the very Voodoo Tomas depends on in a battle with Lorena’s own welfare on the line as Pauline’s zombie corpse rises from the grave during a summoning! Although seemingly a bunch of hogwash even those who practice Voodoo would consider questionable and maybe even a bit bothersome, it allows for Tomas to lurk about the house with evil intentions. Michelle is an attractive lead for French to align with as Durand’s handiwork presents a possible threat to them. Thunder, lightning, and rainfall eventually batter the mansion as Voodoo chants from Durand in his ritual chamber stir up sinister magic.