- Director: William Castle
- Writers: Robert Dillon, J.B. Priestley
- Starring: Tom Poston, Robert Morley, Janette Scott
- Run time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes
- Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2LXcSpq
Synopsis
Tom Penderel, a car salesman from America, goes to the casino and finds Casper Femm, a friend who has recently bought one of his cars. Femm loses a pile of money gambling and insists that Tom spend the weekend with him at Femm Hall. He explains that a casket has just been delivered there, and “it’s almost time.” Casper flies home, and Tom drives the car to Femm Hall. Tom arrives, and the new car is basically destroyed by the time he gets there.
He walks up to the door of the main house, knocks on the door, and falls through a trap door into the cellar. The entrance doesn’t work right, says Potiphar Femm. “This house is old. Old and Dark,” he explains. He leads Tom into the study, where Casper lies in a coffin– he’s dead. He meets Cecily Femm, who says Tom is very brave to come there. She warns him to leave before the others return.
It’s too late, since Uncle Roderick is at the door. He meets Casper’s mother as well as Morgana, the sex-starved cousin who latches onto Tom like a leech. They all sit down and have dinner in the leaky old dining room. Cecily explains that there are two more who didn’t come to dinner.
Tom asks why they all choose to live in the dumpy old mansion. “It’s not that we want to stay at Femm Hall, Mr Penderel, it’s that we must. We must!” explains the mother. Roderick explains that the great pirate Morgan built the house and required in his will that all his descendants must live in the house to have any right to the fortune. Any member of the family who doesn’t return to the house each night by midnight, forfeits everything. Nothing can change until the house dies. Suddenly, they all hear Casper’s voice, but it turns out it’s just a tape recording.
There are numerous comedic encounters as Tom meets the various crazy family members one by one. Soon, Tom goes wandering around and meets Casper, who is up and walking around. This is actually Jasper, Casper’s twin. Jasper expects that he’ll be next. He says that Uncle Roderick wants to kill them all off, so he gets the fortune. Morgan Femm makes an appearance, but he doesn’t speak.
Midnight strikes, and Mother Agatha doesn’t appear. They follow a trail of yarn to her dead body, stabbed with her own knitting needles. Soon, Tom runs into one of Potiphar’s collection. He collects hyenas. Actually, he collects lots of animals, as he’s building Noah’s ark in the backyard. Literally, with all the animals. He wants Tom and Morgana to join him in order to repopulate the Earth. Morgan chases Tom into quicksand, and he is then rescued by Roderick. When they get back to the house, they find Jasper dead. Roderick soon follows, killed with his own booby-trapped gun.
Soon, we find out who’s behind the deaths, and Tom must find all the hidden dynamite before the house blows up.
Commentary
There’s murder, death, quicksand, and explosives, so it does have all the horror tropes, but this is a very 1960s comedy film. There’s lots of running around and snarky one-liners, and none of the actors play it even remotely straight. I would say this film would be fine for young kids, but it’s just too much slapstick and silly for anyone else.