SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

ryan-10075 Seen this movie 3 times now and I think of this as a middle of the road horror movie from Lucio Fulci. Meaning I wouldn't put this on a list with the best of Fulci movies, but I wouldn't say it was one his worst either. One thing that is different about this movie compared to other Fulci movies I have seen is there are only a few gore scenes in this movie. For this was made for Italian TV rather than theatres so the violence, while still present is not as powerful as other Fulci films. Three dope-smoking young thieves are aware of this isolated house where some rich elderly people live. So they trick their way into the home to steal from these people, but the robbery goes horribly wrong as the elderly people are killed. This is when the mystery of the clocks within the house take shape and unfold a nice little horror story with some nice twists along the way.

Red-Barracuda Lucio Fulci is one of the most important Italian horror film-makers for sure but by the tail end of his career the quality of his output got pretty bad. The House of Clocks falls into this bracket unfortunately. It would only be fair to say that part of the issue in this one was that it was a made-for-TV production, so it was of a noticeably lesser budget than he was used to. Production values are consequently bargain basement in every respect, which does nothing to help this film in any way. Interestingly, despite being a made-for-TV movie, it seemingly was never actually shown on television due to its explicit violence. There are several cheap gore sequences punctuated throughout and do at the very least alleviate the tedium at least to some extent. The story is about three thieves who break into the house of an elderly couple. Trouble is, these oldsters are psychopaths and their house of clocks has supernatural powers with the ability to reanimate the dead.The story is certainly unusual enough to garner at least some credit. But it's just not really executed in a very good way at all. For the most part it's kind of tedious in actual fact, while it never looks anything other than cheap with very little in the way of atmosphere. By the late 80's the Italian film industry was struggling financially and it's certainly an indicator that the man who made so many good to excellent genre pics ended up working on a low quality TV production such as this. Overall, this one can really be recommended to Fulci completists only.

loomis78-815-989034 The drugged up roaming punks pick the wrong house to rob when they come across the elderly couple Victor (Paolini) and Sara (Bettina Milne) at their strange country home. Infested with clocks Victor has collected for seventy years, the unstable Paul (Hintz) flips out and kills the couple along with the grounds keeper (Al Cliver). When this happens, the clocks begin going backwards which does a number on time and soon the elderly couple has come back to life seeking revenge. This made for Italian TV movie came late in the carrier of Lucio Fulci but still manages a Fulci look. Unfortunately, the story telling is a mess and you're never too sure of what and why things are happening. The characters are all Assholes other than the elderly couple so we could care less when they are in pearl. Gore is plentiful and disgusting with a spear being jabbed into a groin in one highlight. The film's biggest mistake is that it just isn't any fun. Fulci's best stuff didn't always make complete sense but it was still fun as hell to go on the ride. This movie is just nasty with crappy characters and no life. Only die hard Lucio Fulci fans need to view this one.

adriangr If you're still interested in watching any late 1980's movies by gore master Lucio Fulci, chances are you might want to add this to your list. Well, don't. It's another total turkey. As far as I can see, Fulci started a downward slide with "Manhattan Baby", and never recovered. I have seen "Aenigma" (a joke) "Touch of Death" (pitiful), "A Cat in the Brain" (nonsensical), "Voices From Beyond (snoozefest), and even sat through "The Ghosts of Sodom" (run as far as you can from this abomination), so I have no-one else to blame but myself for even giving "House of Clocks" a try. The plot is roughly this: An elderly couple inhabit a large mansion, and they are more than a little eccentric, by which I mean that from the very outset they are both seen to have homicidal tendencies! Into this situation drop three young petty criminals who have designs on stealing some loot from the treasure laden house. The twist is that the treasures of the house are all clocks, and when the violent youths meet the crazy old couple, the clocks themselves play a big part in what happens next... OK so what's wrong with this movie? Well basically, most of it. As with all of Fulci's later works it's hampered by everything that could possibly make a passable horror movie into a disaster. The acting is really poor. I've never seen such amateurish mugging and wailing as we get here from the three central youngsters. They are just terrible. A really, REALLY bad dubbing job only makes things worse, and English speaking dubbing team don't seem to have a clue about matching dialogue up to lip movements, there is barely a moment when the cast look like they are using their own voices. The elderly couple are just as bad, even though they don't ham it up, they are lumbered with an equally hopeless dub job. Sadly, the list of shame goes on. The direction and camera work are totally uninspired. Fulci has a few trademark images that he continues to roll out over and over again. Cameras mount staircases, zoom in on shadows or doorknobs, jump rapidly in focus from foreground to background and back again, etc etc. I've seen all these tricks a hundred times and the novelty has long since worn off. Worse still, the effects are now beyond lame. All the gore scenes (brief and not very explicit) are really poor, the effects are very shoddy and they just don't work. The non-gore special effects are equally terrible, and sadly this film relies on a few trick shots for important scenes, all of which are botched. It's like Fulci doesn't know how to make anything pass for realistic, or just doesn't care. But the very worst offender of all is the plot. Oh my god. Words fail me in trying to explain what's going on here. The film has a major supernatural twist and from the moment that everything in the house goes pear shaped (you'll know when), the film just unravels totally. Nothing works, nothing makes sense, nothing gets explained. Don't think I am just not getting it. I love surreal cinema and being made to think. But this is an insult. As stupid event followed stupid event I was almost laughing, but by the time the end credits rolled, I was wondering how this was ever passed off as serious entertainment, it's such a mess it's just not funny. Take my advice and don't go near this. I'm sorry to be so negative about Lucio Fulci when he has produced some of the genre's finest shockers, but his later films never repeated the success of the golden days, and this is just another example of him churning out pot-boilers when he had long since lost the ability or interest in making a good product.