When a woman's sister is the fifth girl to go missing in LA near a Catholic halfway house for troubled teens and the police do nothing, she decides to go undercover and do her own investigation. A strict nun (Mary Woronov), a pervvy priest and a sketchy groundskeeper all seem like they could have something to do with the disappearances. But the truth is far more, um,
slimey.

This film has a few things going for it that are hard to deny: a couple name actors, a great campy monster pit (and life-size Cthuloid monster to fill it!), good cinematography, and an attractive cast. For the Lovecraft purist it even has a credible Mythos plot involving the Old Ones and the Necronomicon.

But it is not striving to be a good Lovecraft adaptation, but instead a loving tribute to previous poor Lovecraft adaptations. Specifically sexploitation Lovecraft adaptations with lots of tits and ass and rubber tentacles. This is a funny thing to do, sort of like "Wet, Hot, American Summer" being a

spoof of eighties summer camp films. In both cases the memory fools one into being nostalgic for a moment and missing the good old days when they made "that kind" of movie. But neither of these truly are subgenres; name three 80's summer camp films besides "Meatballs" or three sexploitation Lovecraft adaptations besides "From Beyond". Are they out there? Sure, but by and large they are the bottom of the barrel of Lovecraftian cinema.

But since this is what The Halfway House is paying homage to, it is worth noting that it succeeds. The acting is poor throughout, but in a number of cases this is clearly on purpose. There is a comfort in knowing that the people who made the film are capable of sharing a joke with the audience. The girls are attractive and can scream on cue. The men are all ugly/creepy/scruffy enough to fit their stereotypes (groundskeeper, priest and police chief respectively) except for the leading man who is good looking in the way leading men are supposed to be.

One interesting twist in The Halfway House is that the leading man plays second fiddle to a leading lady. In fact, the movie belongs to Janet Keisjer who plays Larissa, the only character given a motive (besides sex) to be doing anything in this film. Let me repeat that: 97% of the action in this film is motivated by sex. Interestingly this includes the Lovecraftian plot as well, and no, that doesn't preclude it from being faithful to Lovecraft. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of this film is the head-on collision between the film's homage to sexist stereotypes and situations, and the somewhat feminist characterizations of the two female leads. Woronov's character in particular is an interesting riff on Lovecraftian villains; a sort of fusion of Old Wizard Whately with his daughter Lavinia, or an Asanath Waite who doesn't need to be soul-swapped to wreak havoc.

It's still a man's world in The Halfway House to be sure, and often enough the only reason to have a female lead is to have lesbian sex scenes and shower scenes sprinkled throughout the film.

- Christian Matzke

The films official website can be found here.