Welcome to the Dagmar's House
A nice Haunted House horror and a homage to the filmmakers
genre favourite - Lucio Fulci, with the role
figures names borrowed from Fulci films, and Dagmar after the legendary
Dagmar Lassander naturally.
Also, this film has a heavy whiff of Dr. Freudstein and The House by
the Cemetary.
The main roles in this film are wisely played by middle-age actors,
and they're great, especially Barbara
Crampton (once gloriously topless in the great horror-comedy
classic Re-Animator some 30 years earlier)
and Andrew Sensenig as the married couple and the new
owners of the Happy Dagmar's House .... NOT!
The House
This film starts slowly with a lot of atmosphere building
up, with the sad couple of Paul and Anne Sacchetti
(Sensenig and Crampton) moving into their newly bought house (and to
a surprisingly low bargain price) trying
to handle the death of their son Bobby. And, there are occurrences,
premonitions of something Evil to happen
and of something bad hidden in the house. Some elderly neighbours visits
and tell them about the local lore of
the house, the house of the Dagmar family. Built in 1859 and used by
the Dagmar's as a funeral parlor. When
leaving the lady sticks a paper note in Anne's hand with the warning:
"The House needs a family. Get Out"

This film has 2 parts really, or 60 % - 40 % something
The1st - A slow almost finely tuned and atmospheric about the couple,
the house and the dawning realization
that there's some really bad karma connected to it
The 2nd - From an atmospherical ectoplasmic thriller to Full Tilt action-horror.
A very enjoyable chaos and
- Hail to the filmmakers - a lot of good old Non-CGI special effects,
aaah, so nice to see.
Again, great acting from Crampton and Sensenig but also from their friends
May and Jacob (Lisa Marie
and Larry Fessenden) makes this finally somewhat "blunt" (crude?)
film work. Thanks also to the great Lucio
Fulci who inspired this film and to old Dr. Freudstein who clearly inspired
the look of the Dagmar's.
And, the House in itself is great with it's old and a bit hostile look
and placed in cold snowy surroundings.
Let's not forget about the fine crisp work of the cinematographer Karim
Hussain either.
I haven't heard anything about this nice little horror and recommend
it highly. To the swedish readers of this
page it has been released by Njuta Films, don't miss it.
anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1, 5.1 DD english audio with english subs.
Extras: Commentary track with writer
and director Ted Geoghegan and producer Travis Stevens, behind the scenes
(7 minutes), trailer and teaser