Sun 4 Oct 2015
Halloween Movie Review: DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (1965).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[5] Comments
DIE, MONSTER, DIE! American International, 1965. Boris Karloff, Nick Adams, Freda Jackson, Suzan Farmer, Terence de Marney, Patrick Magee. Screenplay: Jerry Sohl, based on the story “The Colour Out of Space” by H. P. Lovecraft. Director: Daniel Haller.
An admirable attempt to adapt to film what might have been Lovecraft’s closest attempt to wrote science fiction. Admirable, since there’s much to like, especially in the first half, but doomed to failure when they tried to make a monster movie out of it, rather the a study of the not very beneficial effects a radioactive object landing from space has on all the surrounding terrain.
For some reason the movie was filmed in England, and so naturally they moved the story there as well, rather than (I believe) somewhere in austere New England. At least they called the nearby village Arkham. Nick Adams plays the boy friend of Susan Witley (Suzann Farmer), whom he met in college back in the states. Boris Karloff plays her father, intimidating even in a wheelchair, and orders young Stephen Reinhart off the premises.
He refuses, of course, but even stepping off the train, he knows that not all is well with the Witley family. All of the village fold shun him immediately they know his destination. Susan’s mother is not well, the one servant is on his last legs, and old Nahum Witley has secrets he will not tell, including what caused the large pit just down the drive from the manor house, and the totally blighted area around it.
The first half of the movie is extremely well done, beautifully photographed and the old mansion filled with all the accouterments an old family mansion should have. With hints galore, of course, that there are secrets here that man, perhaps, is not meant to know.
So of course when the secrets are so slight, and the telling so indifferently done, the second half can hardly live up the billing. If some of the details of the the history of the house and those who have lived in it had been set out more precisely, it would have helped. But the even the title of film promises a monster, and when all we get is a few momentary chills and a display of what happens in the end to old Nahum Witley, shaggy eyebrows and all, there isn’t anything left to do but wish that a stronger hand had been on the controls.
October 4th, 2015 at 3:10 pm
I had high hopes for this one and for the first 40 minutes or so, was quite enthralled with the Gothic atmosphere and the creeping sense of doom. But the last 1/2 of the movie was a let down. A much better Lovecraft/Arkham adaptation was THE HAUNTED PALACE with Vincent Price which I reviewed
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=34842
October 4th, 2015 at 3:55 pm
It’s hard to do the Lovecraft effect at the end of a film. It works in print and it worked on radio, but on screen his work fizzles out at the finale. When you show the big awful terrible thing lurking in the shadows it is always a letdown.
A few films worked a little but most fail miserably at capturing Lovecraft.
This is okay up to the point atmosphere has to give way to substance.
October 4th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
Lovecraft hasn’t worked all that well on film or television so far, although there have been some noble attempts with results from the above average to the really lowbrow. Poe seems much more adaptable
October 4th, 2015 at 8:51 pm
Quoting Roger Ebert from his online review of MIMIC:
“As Hitchcock pointed out, it’s more fun to wait for a payoff than to see one.”
That’s what happened here.
October 5th, 2015 at 3:32 am
Daniel Haller created the sets and props for Corman’s Poe films and thus was responsible for much of the look and atmosphere in those classics, but his work as a director never quite hit the heights.