The House That Vanished (1973)

Director: Jose Ramon Larraz

Starring: Andrea Allan

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: It's Terror With A Twist!

Plot: A young model, Valerie, and her petty thief, photographer boyfriend (Terry) find their way through the English fog to a backwoods manor in hopes of looting it. What they find instead is murder, and when the model attempts to find the house again, her efforts come to naught.

My Rating: 5/10

Would I watch it again? No

#22 on Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Yes, it's what you think it is...a hot naked British hippie chick with a monkey.

It's been less than two weeks since I've seen this and I've talked about it so much to friends that I'd swear I wrote about it. I guess not. That sucks because now I have to revisit it once more if, for no other reason, to keep my future self from watching it again. As if anyone should give a shit, this is loaded with spoilers.

Meet Andrea Allan (Valerie), one of many women who need to have my babies.

The plot synopsis above is basically the first half hour. Her boyfriend doesn't show up until the end when she discovers he's dead. Strange shit happens like his car showing up outside of her flat the next morning and her portfolio is in the backseat missing a few shots. She's worried so she meets with her best friends who tell her not to go to the fuzz.


She surprisingly gets over her missing boyfriend and goes back to work. Through a photog pal she meets Paul, a young attractive artist in his own right. He makes ceramic masks. Well, he creates the original and his live-in Aunt duplicates them. Valerie and Paul hit it off (if you can call it that - this guy's a real dweeb) and some sort of boring-ass relationship starts. She decides to go to the Scotland Yard and talk about the crazy shit that's been going on and the very next day this creepy guy moves into the vacant flat below hers. He keeps pigeons in his apartment. Why? I...have...no...fucking...clue except that it makes him more strange.


After long walks in the park, Valerie and Paul are digging each other enough for him to take her out to a house in the foggy woods. If you're still awake you just figured it out...it's the same house from the beginning. V&P have sex, she wakes up next to the fire in the darkness, Paul's jealous aunt shows up, he stabs her, Valerie runs for her life, hides in a closet with Terry's body and that broad from the beginning, runs out of the house screaming finding her way into the arms of the creepy downstairs guy who shows up with the coppers. It turns out he's a detective and it looks like he used her as bait to catch the killer. Paul is inside the house putting his black gloves on and the credits roll. He's still alive so I don't know what the fuck is going on. He must be preparing to get taken in by five-O.

Here's Paul's aunt (looking like Richard Dawkins in drag), Valerie and Paul.

This is a standard early 70s thriller that's more akin to the Italian giallo films. It's got the staples of one - black gloves and a surprise killer. They did do a decent job of making you think the creepy downstairs guy was the killer. By that point I didn't care enough to give it much thought. The strangest thing about the movie was Paul's sex scene with his aunt!!!



You see, because of this weird thing going on he's got a fucked up view of women so he kills them. Whatever. It seems to me that he's more likely banging his mother. My theory is it is actually his mother and he just tells Valerie she's his aunt because it would be a deal killer if Valerie thought this guy lived with his mom. Either way, it's creepy and the two of them having sex is just awkward, neither seeming knowing what they're doing. They both have that look and feel that they are really related and the director is forcing them to go at it. Ugh.


Overall, there's not anything worth watching except for Andrea Allan's (Valerie) exceptional body. Woof! The director would go on to do much, MUCH better the very next year with one of the best (if not the best) Euro lesbian vampire films ever, VAMPYRES (1974). Skip this one and watch VAMPYRES twice.