Glucedee
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
Derry Herrera
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
Tobias Burrows
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Midgegirl
I know that "comparisons are odious" but I spent the whole of this film thinking, "I'd love to see Carry On Screaming again".
It's pleasant enough fun, and Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell & Fenella Fielding go a long way towards making it more fun and memorable than it deserves to be. But for me, it suffers from having a lead (Tom Poston) who just reminded me how of good Bob Hope was in The Cat & the Canary, or Harry H Corbett/Jim Dale were in Carry on Screaming.
But the twist on the killer's identity was a nice surprise, and the happy/not happy ending raised a ghoulish smile as well.
All in all, the film has a great 60s kitsch comedy horror vibe, but now I'm just itching to re-watch Carry On Screaming, if only to see Fenella Fielding turning up the vamp-setting to 11.
AaronCapenBanner
William Castle directed this remake, co-produced with Hammer Studios, of the 1932 original directed by James Whale, which had starred Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton. Based on the novel by J.B. Priestly, this version casts Tom Poston as Tom Penderil, an American car salesman in England who is invited to a castle inhabited by the eccentric Femm Family, who are also reclusive. There is a strain of madness and murder in this home, and Tom may not make it out alive... Dreadful and instantly forgettable film is far too reliant on unfunny comedy, poorly executed, with bizarre and ineffectual horror. A complete and total waste of time. Watch the original instead!
Spikeopath
The Old Dark House is directed by William Castle and adapted to screenplay by Robert Dillon from the novel Benighted written by J.B. Priestly. It stars Tom Poston, Robert Morley, Janette Scott, Joyce Grenfell, Mervyn Jones, Fenella Fielding, Peter Bull and Danny Green. Music is by Benjamin Frankel and cinematography by Arthur Grant.In essence a remake of James Whales' 1932 adaptation of the Priestly story, William Castle's film is very much an oddity and pitched somewhere between a live cartoon and a feverish campy dream. Even if you ignore Whale's popular movie, which while not easy to do is something you should at least try to do, this version is just too nutty for its own good.It's not a complete wash out as a film at all, there is some value to be had with a roll call of quality British thespians acting it up alongside "token" American Poston. It's colourfully lurid and the pratfalls are honest and often smile inducing. But it at times comes over as a picture to be viewed with a considerable intake of liquor! Then the murders would become suitably grotesque in a Munsters/Addams Family kind of way and the live wire Poston should be tolerable.Typically of a Castle production there's cheapness within (oh my that Hyenna), but again that can be ignored in context to the strangeness of the piece anyway. The opening credits are neat and set the tone for the cartoonery, a tone kept up by Frankel's musical accompaniments, while the production design for the house is, well, strange. Hard to recommend with confidence to anyone other than boozers or cartoon loving insomniacs, The Old Dark House is at the least unforgettable. 5/10
mark.waltz
This has nothing to do with the 1932 James Whale masterpiece that still has fans shouting, "No beds! They can't have beds!" That melodrama of madness and murder was at least funny with its collection of eccentric characters, but this one is just plain ridiculous, trying too hard and succeeding not at all. Poor Tom Poston ("Mork and Mindy", "Newhart") is the sap who discovers that through a distant pirate relative of the family tree that he may be related to this house of wackos, possibly one of the heirs to a gloomy British mansion where the residents are all balmy in one way or another. Played as if it was spoofing the traveling melodramas that usually starred someone like Tod Slaughter in the British hinterlands, this fails to achieve its goal of being a comedy, lacking in suspense and the usual surprises of William Castle's collection of camp 60's cult classics.Broadly played, this makes what humor there is there seem forced, and even the droll Robert Morley fails to offer amusement as the family's domineering patriarch. At least some Charles Addams drawings entertain during the credits. As if an afterthought, this also utilizes some of the character's names from the original, even though it has no other relation. It is a pity that Castle didn't cast his "13 Ghosts" actress Margaret Hamilton in the Eva Moore role here; That would have been much more inspired than anything that happens here. My favorite quote from this movie actually came out of my mouth, not the characters, that being, "You've Got to Be Kidding!"
