"I burn the evil out of you."

Some of you older mortals enjoy pointing out that the world is going to Hell. Boy, do I wish. Sure, all the nation-states on the globe seem to be pushing ever closer to the brink of world war, but when's the last time that wasn't true? The youth are going crazy, you say? Eating Tide Pods and asking not to be shot? Big deal. I remember when kids used to settle their differences with switchblades. Now, that was fun.

Let's face it -- life on earth is, in general, far less brutal than it used to be. It bums me out, to be honest.

Even child abuse has been on the decline since 1990. Sometimes you hear about parents chaining their kids to their beds and deliberately starving them for decades, but such incidents appear to be statistical anomalies. You hardly ever hear of a mother burning her son's wrist over a gas stove any more, except maybe in this old movie I'm going to tell you about. 

This week's Thursday Thriller is Don't Go In The House. 

This 1979 Joseph Ellison film stars Dan Grimaldi as Donny, a guy who works at a garbage incinerator. One day one of his co-workers catches fire and Donny does nothing to help. Donny's boss reams him out but good in front of all the guys, but another co-worker Bobby (Robert Osth) thinks the boss was too hard on him and invites him out for a beer to talk it through. Donny declines, as he needs to get home and fix mother her tea. When he gets home, his mom is dead, and the voices in his head tell him he can do whatever he wants now. He can turn his music up loud. He can smoke in the house. He can start picking up women and burning them alive with a flamethrower.

Here's the fun part: He dresses the bodies and seats them in the same room. Sometimes he thinks they're laughing at him and he has to go set them straight with a stern talking-to.

Donny seems to have trouble with women because his mother was abusive. His father left when he was young. These are the things Bobby would probably like to hear about, but Donny tells his collection of dead bodies instead. 

I hesitate to call this one a slasher, but only because Donny doesn't use blades. He uses a flamethrower. It's an OK movie, not the best thing I've seen, not the worst. It has some fun effects, and Donny makes priest flambé before it's over. You could argue it is a stirring indictment about how you mortals treat your children and how that perpetuates the cycle of violence, but I think your time might be better spent throwing it on when you have friends over and chatting during the slow moments.

Don't Go In The House streams on Amazon Prime.