So the folks out at Synergetic Distribution sent me a copy of House of Fears to review, and I’ll tell you this much: any movie that can feature an evil clown so thoroughly as to put it on the box art definitely catches my attention.

But this is an old and cheesy ploy from a long way back, thus the question left to you folks will be: “Can this deliver on the killer clown box art promise?”  That’s why I’m here, folks, so follow me into the house!

House of Fears follows a group of kids as they sneak into a haunted house, just ahead of its opening to spend a fun and spooky evening therein.  But as is so often the case, the kids start turning up dead, and their friends are left to wonder who’s behind the murder rampage that’s killing so many of them off.  The house seems impossible to escape from, and they’re even starting to have some serious problems differentiating reality from hallucination as they try their best to get out alive.

The action starts a bit slow, even if I do have to admit that this particular haunted house is REALLY well put together.  And they take a surprisingly large amount of time explaining its ins and outs–so surprisingly large, in fact, that I had to wonder if it was even NECESSARY.  It took almost a half hour into an eighty minute movie for something creepy to actually happen.

Once again, though, I’m left to append my negative remarks with a positive–once that first creepy thing actually manages to happen, they will start happening in earnest throughout the rest of the movie.  Yes, it starts slow, but it carries on well, and easily makes up for its slow pacing with sheer blinding horror awesome.

Though the bit with the clowns will prove sadly disappointing–they’re only around for about a minute or two–but their brief time in will actually be pretty scary, especially given the environment they’re in.

The end result is that, plain and simple, House of Fears is a scary romp that you’ll definitely want to have ready for your next Halloween party.  The Screenhead Ten Scale applauds this slow starting but building effort by handing it an eight out of ten.