Miriam Hopkins is the last of the silver screen's "horror hags" in the 1970's obscurity HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE, on Blu-ray/DVD combo from Vinegar Syndrome.

A psychotic killer is dismembering middle-aged women and leaving their body parts under the Hollywood sign. When reclusive, alcoholic faded star Katherine Packard (Hopkins) falls down the stairs of her Hollywood Hills mansion (actually the Santa Monica residence of late actress Norma Talmadge) and breaks her tibia, in steps handsome aspiring actor Vic Valance (John David Garfield, THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK) as her in-home caregiver. Although he upsets the balance of the household by antagonizing Katherine's secretary Leslie (Gale Sondergaard, THE SPIDER WOMAN), mocking housekeeper Mildred (Florence Lake, THE DAY OF THE LOCUS) – to whom he first introduces himself as "Laurel N. Hardy" – and seducing maid Greta (Virginia Wing, CHARLEY VARRICK), Katherine warms up quickly to the younger man who she takes under her wing and into her bed despite the reservations of pining former director Ira Jaffee (Lester Matthews, WEREWOLF OF LONDON). When Leslie learns of Greta's relationship with Vic, she conspires to get rid of him; but Vic's carnal attachment to Katherine is as strong as it was to his promiscuous mother whose axe murder he either witnessed or committed, and he is capable of anything to prevent her from abandoning him again.

HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE, or THE SAVAGE INTRUDER adds some surprisingly grisly gore and some frank (for the time) sexuality to the "horror hag" subset of movies that started with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, resulting in a variation on SUNSET BOULEVARD with a side of ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO and HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (with more psychedelic childhood trauma flashbacks). Hopkins throws herself into the role of an ersatz Norma Desmond who is only truly delusional when drunk or stoned, as in a sequence where Vic takes Katherine to a wild party ("Hey, look! I'm Katherine Packard's pusher," says a midget drug dealer who takes charge of her wheelchair). Sondergaard, on the other hand, does appear to be slumming. Garfield – son of John Garfield (BODY & SOUL) – also puts on a show in one of his few prominent film roles but seems to suffer from poor direction. The film was the only directorial effort of editor Donald Wolfe (THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS), and one wonders if the discovery of dismembered body under the opening credits and the first murder – along with the possible beefing up of one later killing into a twitching decapitation – may have been added in post-production (editor Hartwig Deeb is also credited with second unit photography). The score is credited to Stu Phillips but recycles tracks from THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL (also heard in VENUS IN FURS, SISTERS OF DEATH, and THE WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN). Joe Besser (the most annoying of the replacement Stooges) cameos as a tour bus driver.

HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE was released theatrically by Joseph Brenner Associates in 1975 as well as THE SAVAGE INTRUDER (more about that below), and was under the latter title that it arrived on VHS in the early 1980s by Unicorn Video. The film was released to DVD from Full Moon under the HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE sourced from a VHS tape with overscan noise on the bottom of the screen throughout and that appeared to be the only game in town. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is sourced from a 2K scan of the original camera negative. The low-budget film will never be able to compete with some of the bigger horror hag films – looking about as slick as DEAR DEAD DELILAH – but the cinematography of John Morrill (THE WITCHMAKER) recovers some of its bolder uses of color gels from the faded morass of the video master, along with some added detail including nudity in the hallucination sequences, as well as restoring some glamour to the photography which sometimes visually references films of yesteryear. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track is clean, distinguishing the original audio and some looping, as well as the usage of the aforementioned library tracks (a 2.0 Dolby Digital track is also included for no apparent reason as on other recent releases). Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided. Restored to this presentation is a brief stock footage prologue that was missing from the Full Moon DVD as well as THE SAVAGE INTRUDER prints.