Filmed in the historic Strauss Mansion in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey from February–March 1979, Don't Go in the House was released one year later in the spring of 1980, and was met with sharp criticism from film critics due to its graphic depictions of violence, particularly a sequence in which the protagonist burns a nude woman alive with a flamethrower.

After returning from his factory job one evening to the dilapidating Victorian home he shares with his now-elderly mother, Donny finds that she has died in her upstairs bedroom.

This spurs mixed emotions—initially of excitement, as he is finally freed from her—but alternately, fear, as he begins to hear a disembodied voice in the house that seems hers.

Donny enters the room in a fire suit, douses Kathy in gasoline, and burns her alive using a flamethrower.

Donny repeats the same murder scenario that night with Linda, a woman he assails at a grocery store, and arranges her alongside his mother and the other two female victims.

Riddled with guilt over what he has done, Donny visits Father Gerritty, his local priest, to discuss the nature of evil.

When Donny's date tries to pull him onto the dance floor, she inadvertently brushes his arm over the table's lighted candle, triggering memories of his childhood abuse.

[4] Despite some respectable critical notices, Don't Go in the House attracted controversy almost immediately because of its graphic depiction of the death of Kathy Jordan, Donny Kohler's first victim, and the central theme of childhood abuse.

[5] The pre-cut British cinema version was released on video by the Apex label in April 1987, though the film was finally passed uncut in 2011.

[6] John Stark of the San Francisco Examiner panned the film for its depiction of violence, writing: "I would love to be flip and sarcastic about a new horror picture called Don't Go in the House...

gave the film a similar rating, writing, "Grim is the only word for Joseph Ellison's psychological terror movie" and "It's easy to forget just how nihilistic much of American genre cinema was as the 70s turned into the 80s (especially with the avalanche of cheese that was just round the corner), but Don't Go in the House is a chilly reminder of times when practically anything went".

[10] In a retrospective, Dave J. Wilson from Dread Central felt the film was underappreciated, and called it "a dark, chilling, grim and gruesome depiction of the tragic repercussions of child abuse".