Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)

 "What is that?"

"Sounds like a lot of monks exploding."

This isn't Monty Python. Let's make that clear. It's nowhere near in the same league.  Yet, with some added innuendo, it's a similar style of humour. And, quite frankly, it doesn't need gto be anywhere near as good in order to entertain. This is never going to have a claim to be the greatest comedy film of all time, but it's a delightful way to spend ninety enjoyable minutes. And, knowing that good comedy doesn't have to be superlative to be good, one can enjoy a silly little film like this.

My dad is rather partial to Kenny Everett, and I watched and enjoyed a lot of his stuff as a kid. But he seems to have largely disappeared from the zeitgeist, his friendship (and patronship of the London gay scene) with Freddy Mercury aside. Puzzlingly, he's not a gay icon, perhaps because he was (it seems with tongue at least partially in cheek) a Thatcherite Tory. I am, I can say with some confidence, no Tory. but political affiliation, within the bounds of democracy, decency, tolerance and patriotism, should not disqualify an artist from acclaim.It's fair to say I will never blog Triumph of the Will, but let's have a sense of proprtion here. Kenny Everett was a damn good comic performer, as this film makes very clear.

Of course, Pamela Stephenson is magnificent too. Sex therapist she may be these days, but I certainly can't think of a thespian who can portray being pleasurably ravished by a poltergeist Beelzebub woth quite the same elan. And yes, I agree: that sentence may very possibly never have been written before.

 Vincent Price is, of course, magnificent as usual, with a comic talent very much on display, despite looking shockingly old and unhealthy. And the cast is, in general, superb, as is the direction. And the script, while having no pretensions to greatness, is very funny indeed in this alternately witty and very silly horror spoof. I want to see more Kenny Everett.