AllMovie

The story of Italian horror maven Lucio Fulci's made-for-television gore-a-thon concerns a creepy dark house inhabited by a dotty old couple, Victor and Sarah, and their uptight maid, Maria, who is soon impaled (complete with close-ups of guts pouring from the wound) when she discovers the couple's nephew and his wife dead in the basement. Three young crooks decide to break in and rob the isolated villa, killing the handyman (Pier Luigi Conti) and the old couple before being trapped inside by vicious Dobermans in the yard. The house is filled with clocks, which all stop when Victor dies. Even the sand in an hourglass stops pouring. Then the clocks begin moving backwards and time follows suit, resulting in bizarre phenomena and eventually reviving the old couple, who get gory revenge. Soon the whole house is full of reanimated zombies, leading first to a bloodbath and then to a quirky and ironic conclusion which plays with the stereotypical "dream ending" in amusing ways. Karina Huff gets a knife jammed through her hand and there are chainsaws, throat-rending zombies, impalements, and numerous gaping stomach wounds. Keith Van Hoven co-stars with Paolo Paoloni, Bettine Milne, and Peter Hintz.