Joseph Ellison

Joseph Ellison was born in Manhattan in 1948, where he first fell in love with music, especially the diverse sounds of Hank Williams Sr, Thelonious Monk, and The Maguire Sisters. His Texas born father instilled a strong sense of morality in him while moving him around the nation. He recalls his childhood as being largely uneventful and typical, which is a far cry from the type of childhood depicted in his most famous work. "Don't Go in the House", where a sadistic mother punishes her son by burning him. By the 1960s he fell in love with movies, particularly the art films of Fellini. Due to this he decided to become a filmmaker. After leaving New York University in 1971 he toyed around in various post production projects for smaller films. It was during this time that director George A. Romero asked him to be in his 1973 viral horror classic "The Crazies", but was unable to do so do to scheduling conflicts. He spent the next several years working on various exploitation films until 1980 when he was finally able to make his own movie. "Don't Go in the House" was a grim and sickening variation on Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) about a young man who is severely abused by his mother. Every time the boy misbehaves the mother burns the poor boy. When she finally dies he loses his mind and begins kidnapping young women and setting the on fire with a flamethrower in order to get back at his mother. "Don't Go in the House" came out at a time when the horror genre was being attacked by feminist on grounds of it being misogynistic and Ellison's film, along with William Lustig's "Maniac" made the same year (even though "Don't Go in the House" was shot earlier) was seen as the two prime examples to why the genre was dangerous. Critics were no better, calling it "lurid trash" and "sickening" amongst other things. Some critics even went as far to suggest that both the audience and the creators of this film were sick, deranged people. Ellison himself recalls just how strongly the audience reacted to his film. One time the director went to a double feature of "Friday the 13th" and "Don't Go in the House" in New York. While "Friday the 13th" was playing, the audience screamed and cheered; they were having a good time. However, when "Don't Go in the House" was played the audience sat there not moving. Ellison had made a film that was so effective it took the audience out of their comfort zone. It would be another six years before Ellison made another film, and it wasn't a horror film. The little seen drama "Joey" came and went without all the outrage that had accompanied Ellison's debut effort. After the release of "Joey", Ellison retired from filmmaking.