Doom House
Doom house is a 2003 amateur short film made by Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka and Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen of Something Awful fame/infamy/obscurity. It's a parody of the terrible amateurish horror movies reviewed on the site previously, with elements especially reminiscent of The House That Screamed, and filled with intentional minor continuity errors and other bloopers and generally of poor quality in every respect (though making the dialogue audible actually made it better in this one respect than some of the films it parodies). It tells the story of Reginald P. Linux (Kyanka), who moves into a most bizarre haunted house. He tries to solve its mystery with the help of a policeman (Bowen), who turns out not to be what he appears.
The film was accompanied by an incredibly fawning review at Something Awful by Ben "Greasnin" Platt that praised it as a masterpiece and actually broke out the positive (as opposed to the usual negative) points scoring system, giving it a 46/50. The obvious mock subtext was that Platt was just sucking up to his boss. The numerous errors are still Lampshaded under the pretense of praising them as meaningful choices.
An even more bizarre sequel called Mood House was also made, in which everything from the order of the sequence of events to the roles played by the "actors" is reversed.
- Clingy MacGuffin: The house seems to be mostly haunted by an "odd-looking figurine" that always appears near Linux even after he grinds it up in the carbage disposal. It's explained as being "part of the Doom House mystique".
- Daylight Horror: The intention is evidently to make it Daylight Nightmare Retardant.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom
- Dull Surprise: Bowen goes through the whole thing wearing a creepy dull grin, possibly an intentional contrast to Lowtax's overacting.
- Evil Laugh:
- Linux comes pretty close to one when he thinks he's disposed of the doll.
- The terrorist has one of the weirdest ones ever, if that's even supposed to be laughter. It certainly seems to change into something else.
- Gainax Ending: And middle. And beginning. But the ending consists of it being revealed the house is built on a terrorist burial camp and then the terrorist falling down the stairs into the basement and croaking "I'm so bored" while holding a board.
- Haunted House: Or a doom house.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The terrorist is defeated by having the doll thrown at him.
- Indian Burial Ground: More precisely a terrorist burial camp.
- It Makes Just As Much Sense in Context: Everything, unless of course you count the external context of this being a parody.
- Large Ham: Lowtax overacts as hard as he can.
- Big Word Shout/Skyward Scream: Linux on his bed after he finds that the strange figurine has followed him there. "WHYYYY???"
- Milking the Giant Cow: In the above scene and elsewhere. Lampshaded in the review: "The best acting is all in the arms."
- Narm: Invoked Trope.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: In the scene where Linux is fleeing from the doll.
- Visual Pun: "I'm so bored" while holding a board. What? Nobody said it was a good one.