The Old Dark House (1963) User Reviews (69)

Oranges and lemons...

[Jweybrew · 6/10 · 1 June 2008]

Owing little to either James Whale's 1932 chiller, or to J.B. Priestly's original source novel, "Benighted", THE OLD DARK HOUSE is a small, off-beat and pleasantly daffy scare-comedy, a change-of-pace for director William Castle. Filmed and set in England, Tom Poston stars as a hapless American who, on a visit to a curious roommate's even curiouser family home, is caught up in a murderous merry-go-round of mayhem, nursery rhymes, love and (very possibly) the end of the world (including an Ark!). British stalwarts Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell, Mervyn Johns, and Peter Bull have a charming good time playing the various members of the Femm family, along with Janette Scott and an unforgettably slinky Fenella Fielding as romantic interests. None of the usual Castle gimmicks for this release--just a bit of eccentricity and a pleasant, creepy, multi-murder mystery, with a puzzle to solve, a couple of surprises, and some good solid chuckles.

A note to fans of Charles Addams--the film's poster and its main titles contain some choice Addams artwork.

An additional note: the film was shot in color, but released in a very faintly tinted black-and-white version. The color version of the film was only seen on subsequent television release.

This movie really does deserve a DVD release, not only for its place in the William Castle canon, but for the performances and the fun.

Amusing and entertaining camp horror-thriller!

[Snake-666 · 6/10 · 15 August 2003]

In this creepy horror-comedy directed by William Castle we meet Tom Penderel (Tom Poston), an American residing in England from where he sells cars. During a visit to a casino, where he informs his eccentric flatmate Caspar Femm (Peter Bull) that Tom has now acquired for Caspar a brand new American car, Tom is invited to Femm House, home of Caspar and his family. Reluctantly he accepts the invitation and makes his way to Femm House, only to find murder and very creepy family.

The rating on IMDb for 'The Old Dark House' (1963) simply is not an accurate assessment of this films quality in my opinion. Though quite obviously camp and with a unique charm all of its own this movie delivers an entertaining storyline and amusing comic scenes from beginning to end. Upon encountering the oddball charm of Caspar it becomes apparent that this horror movie is not going to be an all out scarefest, in fact its quality lies in the intermingling of a tight `whodunit' thriller with so many humorous sequences.

Tom Poston is cast perfectly as the nervous American trying desperately to make sense of the madness going on around him and his continuing encounters with overprotective and psychotic father Morgan Femm (Danny Green) make for some of the best comedy I have seen in a horror movie for a long time. The whole Femm family have a distinctly creepy charm to them from the gun-nut Uncle Roderick (an inspired performance from Robert Morley) to the charmingly deranged Petiphar (Mervyn Johns). Also worth noting is the performance from Janette Scott (The Day of the Triffiads) as the sweet and innocent Cecily Femm.

'The Old Dark House' is a wonderfully accomplished camp, horror-thriller in my opinion. The storyline is entertaining throughout and the comedy does not seem forced but instead works as a light-hearted diversion from what was actually an interesting and slightly complex plot. All this is complimented by a beautifully arranged and often apt musical score. While not really delivering any scares 'The Old Dark House' delivers entertainment and is certainly worth watching in my opinion. Despite some rather suspect special effects (though considering the year it was made one can hardly hold poor effects against it) and camp quality I recommend this to horror fans. My rating for 'The Old Dark House' (1963) - 7.5/10

Some mild laughs and chills in this one.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 2 October 2015]

In this second screen version of J.B. Priestleys' book, Tom Poston plays Tom Penderel, an American living in London who makes his living as a car salesman. He shares a flat with Caspar Femm (Peter Bull), who uses the place in the daytime while Tom sleeps there at night. One day Caspar implores Tom to come visit him at the Femm estate, which is up for grabs. Tom is then forced to deal with the wacky Femm family for one every eventful evening.

One would have expected a collaboration between gimmick master William Castle and Britains' legendary Hammer Studios to be more fun. It's more of a comedy than a horror film, and only a fitfully amusing one. There are some funny gags, but it just falls flat a lot of the time. It basically serves to make fun of the entire "old dark house" genre, complete with the expected tropes (like a dark, stormy night). It's decent light entertainment, but is eminently forgettable. It looks great, which is what the viewer expects from Hammer films (a lot of the crew are the usual Hammer suspects). But it doesn't have the level of atmosphere that's really required for most stories of this type.

The likable Poston leads a sterling British cast that helps to keep this version of "The Old Dark House" watchable for 87 minutes. Robert Morley is gun nut Roderick Femm, Janette Scott the striking blonde Cecily, Joyce Grenfell the doddering matriarch Agatha, Mervyn Johns the upbeat Potiphar, Fenella Fielding the slinky Morgana, and Danny Green the hulking, silent Morgan. (If Popeye had been turned into a live action feature in the 60s, Green might have made for a good Bluto.)

This kills time without too much pain, but it's far from grade A Castle *or* Hammer.

Title illustrations by Charles Addams.

Six out of 10.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall .

[Coventry · 5/10 · 17 July 2014]

One would expect a collaboration between the American director William Castle and the British production studios Hammer to result in a terrific must-see film, considering they were both horror genre giants in their respective continents during the early sixties. Castle became world famous and appreciated thanks to his morbidly themed but nevertheless light-headed Gothic horror spectacles ("House on Haunted Hill", "Mr. Sardonicus", "13 Ghosts"…), and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Hammer studios boomed with the gruesome re-imaging of the legendary Universal classics from the thirties ("Dracula", "The Mummy", "Frankenstein"…). Knowing this, "The Old Dark House" seems to be the ideal marriage, since it's more or less a remake of the underrated 1932 Universal masterpiece and a great opportunity for a director like Castle to showcase his creativity. Strangely enough, however, the film is somewhat of a disappointment and it's only rescued from inglorious mediocrity thanks to a handful of nice gags and an entertaining final act; including a surprising plot-twist and an exciting race against the clock – literally! The rest of the film clumsily bounces back and forth between talkative mystery and immature comedy. Please don't get me wrong, "The Old Dark House" is never boring and I still prefer it over most of the soulless horror junk being released nowadays, but I simply expected a little bit more… American car salesman Tom Penderel drives out to the god-forsaken British countryside in order to deliver a car at the request of his odd pal Caspar Femm. The two share an apartment, but they never see each other since Caspar always mysteriously vanishes before midnight. When he arrives at the sinister Femm country estate, he learns that all the eccentric family members are obliged to stay at the house and gather at midnight, or otherwise they lose the rights to their part of the inheritance of their notorious ancestor (a pirate). Synchronous with Tom's arrival, the family members are being killed off one by one. Tom should leave while, but he fell for the charming cousin Cecily and the remaining Femms suspect him to be the killer. "The Old Dark House" begins delightfully, with animated opening credits by none other than Charles Addams – the creator of the immortal blackly comical series "The Addams Family – and brings forward several great Gothic aspects, like a moody old castle and never-ending thunderstorms. Some of the supportive characters are also uniquely bizarre, like the crazy uncle who's building an arc or the grandmother that doesn't stop knitting, but overall the film isn't absurd or spooky enough. The actual "horror" footage in the film is limited, a few inventive death scenes and a laughably inept moment with a stuffed hyena.

Not exactly good, but worth seeing...

[silvrdal · 7/10 · 8 October 2005]

Hadn't expected the rigmarole I'd have to go through to snag this film on video, several years ago. I'd seen this two or three times as a child and reveled in the dark comedy of it. The plot is silly, but it's not nearly as important as the production itself.

The charming performances by the many delightful character actors are the highlights of "The Old Dark House" -- Robert Morely, Joyce Grenfell, Peter Bull. Who would ever think that Tom Poston would appear as the romantic (?!) hero of a movie, but there he is. And Oo, that Fenella Fielding! What a dish!

This film isn't for everyone, but I'll never forget it, and neither will you!

An old, dark and disappointing house!

[The_Void · 4/10 · 5 February 2007]

Well, I'm a big fan of William Castle and of Hammer Horror, so I figured that this meeting between the two would be damn good. William Castle's The Old Dark House is not a remake of the classic James Whale film, and this is actually unfortunate because if it was, it no doubt would have been a better film. Instead, what we have is a plot involving an American car dealer who goes to an old house after receiving an invitation from a friend of his, who he shares a house with. While there, he is introduced to a host of strange characters, as well as a plot involving a huge inheritance. The film is obviously intended to be a comedy, but it would seem that Castle should have stuck to horror as little in this film is actually funny, and I was really bored before the ending - not something I expect from William Castle! Considering the film focuses on an 'old dark house', there's very little in the way of atmosphere and I'm guessing that Castle wanted this film to appeal to a younger audience, and for that reason - there's not much here for the older movie fan. The plot rambles on until the conclusion and by then I didn't really care what happened. Overall, this is a sub standard William Castle film if ever I saw one. Straight-Jacket, Homicidal, Mr Sardonicus, The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts come highly recommended - this one doesn't!

I agree with Snake-666....

[colinwparker · 7/10 · 18 March 2019]

This film is definitely worth a higher rating, although of it's time, it is funny, not side-splitting or laugh-out-loud, but quaint in it's way, and Fenella Fielding is always worth watching - not quite up to 'Carry On Screaming', but as delectable and sexy as ever...

And in the final scenes, she most certainly says "Daddy" and NOT "Danny", as suggested in Goofs.

It's supposed to make you laugh....I didn't.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 26 October 2009]

As this film begins, you are bound to notice the wonderful opening credits done by Charles Addams. I do wonder if the hand is that of Addams, though! You have to see it to understand what I mean.

The film begins with an American (Tom Poston) being invited by his English friend to come to spend the weekend at his ancestral home in Dartmoor. However, once he arrives, he finds that his friend is dead--lying in state in the creepy old mansion. But, like any scary old house film, the car is damaged and unable to take him home AND the rain is so bad that he really can't leave. That is when the murders begin and it becomes obvious that the house is filled with a bunch of nuts.

The film is supposed to be a comedic remake of the classic 1932 film. However, I use the words 'supposed to' because rarely is the film particularly funny and the humor seems very, very forced. In many ways, it looks like a film that Sherwood Schwartz or Hanna-Barbera would have made--with perhaps the Brady kids or even Scooby Doo and Shaggy investigating. This combined with the fact that there have been too many old scary house films (such as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, THE MONSTER, NUMBER SEVENTEEN, THE BLACK CAT and many, many others) make this one you don't need to rush out to see.

By the way, in one of the low-points of the film, a hyena is supposedly menacing Tom Poston. However, the camera shots of the hyena from the front clearly show it's a stuffed animal!! The rear shots are a dog!! Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Can William Castle Make a Bad Film? Seems Not.

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 21 February 2010]

Tom Penderel (Tom Poston) is invited to stay at the Femm household... which seems all fine and good until a big storm comes and it is revealed that the family has its share of eccentricities. Not the least of which is the idea that it's time to build an ark.

Director and producer William Castle seems to do no wrong. He has taken an old story, one that was previously made into a dark film in the 1930s, and added his own brand of humor and madness. And who better than Tom Poston to be the star? His slapstick comedy blends in perfectly as he interacts with the amorous Morgana and makes good use of trap doors.

If you're looking for a horror film, this really is not the film for you. There's nothing scary about it. But it is a fine film from a horror master, and there is the threat of death. For, you see, an inheritance is on the line and it would be to each family member's advantage if the others were not to survive.

Please pick up the William Castle box set from Sony and Columbia Pictures. There is not a bad film in the box.

Fun!

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 10 October 2023]

A remake of the 1932 Universal movie, The Old Dark House doesn't have a gimmick. It does have animated credits by Charles Addams and is the only movie that Castle made with Hammer. Both were making a remake at the same time and decided to just work on one movie. Sadly, the reserved Hammer wasn't one for the insane marketing tools of Castle, which may be why he never mentioned this movie in his biography.

While it was released in color in the UK, America only got it in black and white. Most people like it better that way.

Tom Penderel (Tom Posted) is a car salesman and a fish out of water. He's a U. S. citizen pretty much lost in England, delivering a car to an old mansion for his roommate Casper (Peter Bull). The car gets damaged in a storm and he has to go inside, only to discover that Casper is dead and his family - twin Jasper (also Peter Bull), ark carpenter Uncle Potiphar (Mervyn Johns), Cecily (Janette Scott), Roderick (Robert Morley), Agatha (Joyce Grenfell) and Morgana (Fenella Fielding) - invites him to stay.

They all have to remain in the mansion or lose their share of the inheritance, which increases as one of them dies every hour. Of course, one of them is the killer.

If you feel like you've been at this castle before and it was raining, that's because the outside is Oakley Court from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The song that plays in the credits of that movie, "Science Fiction Double Feature," references one of the cast members of this movie: "And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills..."

The Old Dark House ready for return to television?

[cutshall0 · 9/10 · 17 August 2005]

The Old Dark House does not provide the gore and R-rated material seen in today's horror movies but it does reflect a more simple time when comedy and horror could be matched while maintaining a family rating.

As a child I saw The Old Dark House over one hundred times, I remember being on the edge of my chair during the entire movie every single sitting.If only the local television stations would be able to air this movie, a new generation of viewers could enjoy, The Old Dark House.

The film may be the last of the "old age" comedies that were popular during that time. Tom Poston does a good job of not only showing fear but does so in comedy style to allow us, the viewers, to use our imagination.

While The Old Dark House may not live up to today's standards, it was a "movie of the day" in 1963.

Stalin dies, and a million fans of this film are born

[LobotomousMonk · 6/10 · 25 February 2013]

Zotz!.. another William Castle and Tom Poston lighthearted dark adventure for all ages. Amusing quips and snappy banter abound. There are some plot contrivances (typically par for the Castle course). The Old Dark House would surely have been better suited for black and white film stock as the milieu is inherently sinister. That being said the full color palette does tend to heighten the humor elements of the story as Poston's pink puppy dog cheeks remind us of how sweet and naive a witless hero can be. However, the chromatic compromise confounds establishment of mood and thus character motivation. A third of the duration of the film passes prior to the formation of a real clue about the plot (which according to other reviewers holds little sway in the realm of fidelity to the original Priestly story or Whale film from the thirties). The staging/blocking and mobile framing are not constructed with any technical finesse or creative flair. I tend to find that Castle's best directing efforts are inspired by higher quality scripts he works with. For Castle, when the storytelling stammers his direction staggers and his authorial voice goes mute. There are shades of this crutch in The Old Dark House. Similar to Zotz!, Poston plays a character that reminds one of Leonid Gaidai's Shurik character - fumbling and bumbling through the simplest of tasks, getting himself into trouble way over his head, and gallantly dodging sexy, seductive women who throw themselves at him bosom to face. If you wanted to probe and plumb this film for some deeper value, try a psychoanalytic approach (either Freud or Lacan will do). Personally, I wouldn't bother... but you never know. As it stands, this is an amusing film that is best watched while doing something more important.

"You're Just As Batty As The Rest Of 'Em!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 19 January 2020]

After a wonderful opening drawn by none other than Charles Addams, THE OLD DARK HOUSE begins. Tom Poston stars as American car salesman, Tom Penderel. After traveling to England to deliver a car to his friend, Caspar Femm, Penderel is invited to Femm's massive, ancestral home, where the fiendish fun unfolds! An inheritance is at stake, with an oddball cast on hand to attempt to claim it.

Those expecting a "serious" remake of James Whale's original, can abandon all hope. This is a lighthearted comedy, much in the same vein as THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, with Poston playing the Don Knotts-type character. This being a collaboration between William Castle and Hammer Studios makes one wish they had worked more together.

Co-stars Robert Morley (THEATER OF BLOOD) and Janette Scott (THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS). Personally, I could watch Morgana Femm (Fenella Fielding) for hours and hours!...

Just silly--kids might like it

[preppy-3 · 2/10 · 13 May 2004]

Tom Poston ends up in an old dark house in England during a huge storm. Inside lives a very weird family called the Femms. They're all hoping to get a huge inheritance--but only one must still be living. During the night, they all start getting killed off. The phones are dead, the roads are washed out--who will survive till day?

I had good memories seeing this as a kid on Saturday afternoon TV. I remembered it being funny and only scary at the very end when someone has a machete held to their throat! Seeing in now I can't figure out why I liked it.

The plot is dumb and ALL of the comedy is either childish or stupid--I didn't crack a smile once. The murders are bloodless and supposed to be funny (they aren't). Some of the acting is good. Poston is very good playing the straight man basically. Robert Morley hams it up as the head of the household. Janette Scott has the thankless "good girl" part (but plays it well) and Fanella Fielding REALLY chews the scenery as the bad girl Morgana. The script drags, the revelation of the killer is no surprise and there's tons of very unfunny slapstick. It's also VERY loud. Kids might like this--adults probably won't. I expected more from a co-production between William Castle and Hammer Studios.

Trivia note: For some reason this was released theatrically in black & white...it's in color on TV.

There goes a cherished childhood memory

[KillerCadugen · 4/10 · 7 September 2004]

I have three great memories of watching horror movies when I was a kid - the first was seeing House of Dark Shadows in the movie theater and having an incredibly, intense nightmare and sleepwalking episode that night. The second was seeing House on Haunted Hill on Creature Features and shivering throughout the movie because I was so scared. Both of those memories have stood up after seeing those movies again. The one that did not was my memory of The Old Dark House by William Castle. I remember the day I watched it and how deliciously scared it made me with people being bumped off left and right and Tom Posten (SPOILERS AHEAD) running around near the end of the movie looking for the bombs hidden in the clock. I even remember being shocked when the mastermind behind all the killings was blown up at the end. Well, I finally saw the movie for the first time in more than 30 years and while it was mildly amusing, I found it to be amazingly dull. The original - with Boris Karloff - is a great spooky house chiller, but in the remake Castle went more for humor and gimmickry and it failed badly. When the movie was over, all I could think was, "There goes a cherished childhood memory."

Not James Whale, but worth a look for William Castle fans

[kirksworks · 7/10 · 15 November 2009]

Of course this film doesn't hold a candle to the James Whale film from 1932, but if you put that film out of your mind and go into this William Castle film and take if for what it is - a William Castle film - you'll probably enjoy it. Like no other film I can think of, this "Old Dark House" is like a Mad magazine movie satire come to life. Actually, it's more like Mad magazine when it was a comic book back in the 1950s. It has none of the sophistication and witty dialog that mark the James Whale film, and neither does it have much to do with the J. B. Priestly book 'Benighted' that the earlier film followed so closely, but it does have a highly surreal wackiness that has more in common with a Tex Avery cartoon than a live action horror comedy.

As a Hammer Film, it is also sumptuously art directed, with nicely dressed, if overly-lit, sets. Whereas the original film was about a group of travelers who find themselves stuck in a strange house inhabited by some insane, and in some cases, psychotic and dangerous family members, the William Castle film focuses on a single visitor, played by Tom Poston, who delivers a car to the Femm mansion to give the roommate friend who happens to be a member of the family.

Upon arriving at the mansion, the car is ruined and Penderel is instantly "invited" into the house via a trap door at the front porch (that becomes a running gag); and he proceeds to watch family members killed off one by one. Each family member, you see, must stay in the house, or forfeit the family fortune. Does it make any sense? Only in weird William Castle logic. The film does have a bit of the Charles Addams black humor to it, particularly when the family keeps lowering the flag at half mast every time one of their members dies.

These family members, while not as frighteningly bizarre as in Whale's film, are indeed a strange bunch. There's Roderick Femm, avid gun and canon collector, played by Robert Morley; Petiphar Femm, who plans on saving the world by building a new ark and populating it with Tom Penderel (Poston) and Morgana Femm (Fenella Fielding), as the ark's human specimens; Tom's roommate friend Caspar Femm and his twin brother, Jaspar, both played by Peter Bull eventually laying side by side dead in coffins, one strangled by fireplace stokers; crazy knitter Agatha Femm, played by Joyce Grenfell, who is offed by her own knitting needles; totally crazy and psychotic Morgan Femm (Danny Green), who seems to fill the threatening role of crazy Saul from the first film; but it is Cecily Femm, played by the sexy and beautiful Janette Scott (of "Day of the Triffids" fame) who brings the biggest surprise by being revealed as the actual psycho murderer amongst this crazy bunch.

No, this is not a classic, but the atmospheric surroundings, a stuffed animal being shaken by someone off screen to suggest a fearsome hyena (the audacity of the cheapness!), the weird Noah's ark thing, and the sheer oddness of the whole production makes it very watchable. And it has a very good score by Benjamin Frankel, of all people. Only William Castle could have put something together so utterly surreal as this. Truly bizarre. Don't expect James Whale, and know what you're getting yourself in for and you'll probably have a good time.

A Dead-End "William Castle" Whodunit/Comedy.

[strong-122-478885 · 3/10 · 3 September 2014]

Just like Castle's movie "Zotz!", The Old, Dark House was yet another inane farce that easily proved just how clueless this guy was at directing Comedy (more so than he was with directing Horror).

Once again (just like with "Zotz!") this less-than-funny, hare-brained story had the distinctive feel of being an imitation (a very poor imitation) of a typical Disney, family movie of the early 1960s. This film's targeted audience was that of children under 10 who obviously had very low expectations about what was entertaining and what wasn't.

This film certainly had all sorts of potential to be a really fun and humorous story for all ages. But it seemed that at the hands of such a clueless amateur like William Castle, its story just didn't come anywhere near to living up to that potential.

At every opportunity to generate some genuine laughs, Castle missed the mark, over and over again, and let its story fall flat on its face and flounder around in what seemed like a literal no-man's land of B-grade mediocrity.

I believe that The Old, Dark House was one of the few Castle films that was actually shot in colour.

This film's story is something of a "Whodunit". It involves the peculiar specifics of a family Will, the 7 eccentric relatives who all reside at Femm Hall (a grand, old, English mansion falling into ruin), and an American outsider who inadvertently gets dragged into an unpleasant family affair that goes way beyond his power of control.

One of this film's biggest downfalls was Castle's inability to build suspense, sustain drama and be humorous, all at the same time. Long before it's actually revealed, the viewer will have no trouble guessing the identity of the killer who's been bumping off all of the Femms at Femm Hall.

This is not a good movie. I don't even recommend it as entertainment for young children. Let's face it, William Castle just didn't have the knack for creating memorable Comedy.

It Was Engaging and Wacky

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 5 June 2021]

I can't see Tom Poston without thinking of George Utley, the handyman in the Newhart show. He is the poker faced protagonist in this silly tongue in cheek horror film. He is asked to go to the mansion of the Femm family and soon realizes he is in sort of snake pit. Everyone is seemingly crazy, possessed by various demons. He becomes a plaything and manages to escape time after time. I won't go into all the goofy plot stuff. Instead I will compliment the producers in their creation of an amazing setting, filled with items of every kind. There's even an ark which has been in the works for twenty years. There is no gratuitous violence, though bodies abound. I just chanced on this and got a kick out of it.

Remake.

[AaronCapenBanner · 2/10 · 14 October 2013]

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!

One half of a good movie

[horrorfilmx · 6/10 · 26 October 2009]

Although supposedly a remake of the James Whale film (and the J. B. Priestley book on which it's based) William Castle's OLD DARK HOUSE really has nothing in common with either except the titular domicile and a few character names. This movie starts out very promisingly, with Charles Addams' delightful credits complimented by Benjamin Frankel's lovely score, both eerie and lyrical. The opening scenes remind one of the darker Ealing comedies (KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, THE LADYKILLERS), what with the great cast of British character actors led by the wonderful Robert Morley, and the production values are up to the usual Hammer standard. Then about halfway through, starting with the scene where Tom Poston is "menaced" by a stuffed hyena, the movie goes downhill and never recovers. Now, I understand the difficulties of making a movie with limited resources but how anyone ever thought they could pass off this refugee from a taxidermist's as a real animal boggles the mind. And the Ark sequence, while promising in concept, is very badly executed. The miniature work is just too obvious to pass muster and the interior of the ark looks like it was shot at a broken down zoo somewhere, with little effort made to transform it into a boat interior. And so it goes, right down the toilet. A big disappointment.

Not very good, I'm afraid

[daniele-iannarelli · 4/10 · 23 June 2019]

Quite disappointing.

I enjoyed the opening credit graphics sequence but then, unfortunately, the film seemed to deteriorate from the beginning.

The film does boast a lot of interesting 'names' in both the cast and the production, including the gorgeous Fenella Fielding and the very sweet Janette Scott. However, their prestigious standing is wasted by the terrible script and poor dialogue.

I had planned on giving a generous 5/10 but, after seeing the antiquated concept of wild animals (sources from a local circus, no doubt) held in small cages and looking like some sort of weird collection, it's now a 4/10.

Poor show, and reflective of a bygone age of lack of compassion for animals.

My 33rd birthday viewing.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 8/10 · 9 February 2020]

Playing the commentary Vy Kim Newman and Stephen Jones commentary to The Old Dark House (1932-also reviewed) last year, I was surprised to learn that it had been remade.

Returning home after going to the superb The Art of the Brick exhibition in Manchester (100 works of art,made of LEGO!)on my birthday,my dad surprised me with a William Castle box set, containing Old Dark House remake,with a commentary by Newman & Jones. This led to me ending my birthday in a old dark house.

View on the film:

Oddly suffering a similar fate to the original, (which the studio tried to destroy all copies of, so only the remake would survive)in Hammer and Columbia dumping the movie, (it came out in a black and white version in the US,then thrown out 3 years later in the UK with a heavily cut edition) and Castle not mentioning the title once in his autobiography,Indicator stage a huge re-evaluation, presenting 3 cuts of the film with crystal clear image and sound, backed by fascinating extras including a new Kim Newman and Stephen Jones commentary,all tied up with a detailed booklet.

Walking down the stairs towards the camera gazing at her figure,Fenella Fielding gives a magnetic performance as Morgana, whose bright chic costumes stand out on the screen, as Fielding layers Gothic glamour with a tempting ambiguity over Morgana's true warmth towards Penderel.

Whilst Tom Poston is a bit too meek as Penderel, the other guests turn this place into a fun house, with Peter Bull bringing out the Gothic chills in Jasper's startled face, Robert Morley whipping up stern shocks as Rod,and Janette Scott keeping Penderel on a knife edge to the bumps in the night within the house.

Lashing the windows with the same opening rainfall as the original, director William Castle & regular Hammer Horror cinematographer Arthur Grant ignite a explosive coalition between Castle's flamboyance, and the sparkling Gothic of Hammer Horror. Opening the house more to laughs than chills, Castle unlocks each door with terrific rolling whip-pans finding every hidden corner in the house, which becomes lit in ruby reds, as the Femm's slither round the house.

Having worked with Castle,and Hammer before, the screenplay by Robert Dillon neatly blends the two styles, where in the era of Hammer "remakes" of classic Universal Horror's,Dillon tastefully pays tribute to the original with bookends, whilst refreshingly making the contents of the house its own thing. Entering with Penderel as a outsider, Dillon turns the screws on the mystery of the femm family with a delightfully dark comedic slap-stick needling a growing body count with unsettling quirks each family member holds within the old dark house.

Amusing film with good assortment of character actors

[kolob · 6/10 · 5 October 1999]

I've only seen Tom Poston in two films, this one and "Zotz". This is a funny, entertaining film that never really gives one a good scare, but does do a good job of keeping you amused. Robert Morley is always a joy to watch. The twins (Casper & Jasper) are a strange lot, as well as the other characters in this old dark house. They would probably fit in well at the Addams' home- if it weren't for the fact that they start dropping like flies. Who is the killer? Will Poston live long enough to find out? Watch this and then see "Ten Little Indians", which this film emulates in several ways.

Who is this movie actually designed to entertain?

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 14 June 2018]

An extremely strained and wholly indifferent comedy-thriller. Most of the labored jokes and the way overdone comic relief situations back fire or fizz out like damp squibs, despite (or maybe because of) desperate play-acting by the inept hero who has no charisma whatever.

I will admit that the inept script, plus the heavily way-overdone and over emphatic direction does not help. Nor do most of the players come to the hero's rescue. Even normally reliable people are defeated by the totally unfunny script and the producer's labored direction.

Admittedly, the film has been lensed on a copious budget. and production values are not bad.

Unfortunately, the charmless hero figures in just about every scene and thus succeeds in spoiling just about all of the producer's attempts to make this old dark house shine with genuine merriment and even a bit of suspense.

In fact, I am puzzled. Who is this movie actually designed to entertain?

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (William Castle, 1963) **

[Bunuel1976 · 4/10 · 24 February 2011]

I used to take people to task when they said that, being fond of a particular film, they would not watch some other version of the same source material…but, while I am a fan of Hammer Horror and (to a lesser extent) genre exponent William Castle, I have to admit to being guilty of this fault (or, if you like, bias) myself when it came to my all-time favorite movie – James Whale's similarly-titled 1932 adaptation for Universal of J.B. Priestley's "Benighted"! For this reason, I have postponed viewing the by-all-accounts "best forgotten" remake (Castle apparently did, because he fails to mention it in his memoirs...and, apparently, Boris Karloff declined to participate in it for being overly jokey!) for the longest time but, in view of my ongoing Whale marathon, I thought it was high time I got around to it! By the way, though I recall coming across a copy of the novel as a kid (that is, long before I watched the original film), I have been searching high and low ever since catching up with it – given that I was intrigued enough by the back-story to wish to concoct a veritable prequel!

According to "The Leslie Halliwell Film Guide", the Whale picture had adhered fairly closely to the text albeit "omitting the more thoughtful moments"; the Hammer version, then, is nothing like Whale's but it does include a nice 'exclusive' subplot involving one character's attempt to reproduce Noah's Ark! In most other respects, however, the film is a dismal failure (a pitifully poor sequence supposedly depicting a hyena attack must be seen to be disbelieved!): comedy does not suit Castle (despite his tendency towards Camp), much less Hammer (their recognizable style only coming through here in the overall look, aided by Charles Addams' evocative animated title sequence; the latter is said to owe his choice of career to a viewing of Whale's original!) and the end result barely raises a chuckle – with none of the subtle wit that so characterized the classic original! One grave mistake is the fact that only a single interloper is made to contend with the family of eccentrics, and resistible American comic Tom Poston at that; for the record, he had already collaborated with the director on the previous year's ZOTZ! (which I also own but have yet to check out).

The Femms, on the other hand, are incarnated by a promising gallery of actors but to little effect: Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell, Janette Scott, Fenella Fielding (who would play a similar role in CARRY ON SCREAMING [1966]), Peter Bull, Mervyn Johns and Danny Green; incidentally, Fielding and Bull would later appear together again in the period romp, LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS! (1969) – which I have just acquired. The Whale film had no young women, crazy or otherwise, within the household but there were indeed 2 among the stranded travelers. Whereas Morley is supposed to replace Elspeth (billed as John!) Dudgeon, Grenfell stands in for Eva Moore, Bull has a dual role (which, again, is a new addition) while Johns more or less emulates Brember Wills (since he is perhaps the looniest – that said, his murderous inclinations are transferred onto one of the ladies, which is an agreeable novelty in itself!) and Green doubles for Karloff's giant mute butler (though, in this case, his dumbness is merely a ruse!).

Even if the original was relatively uneventful (a criticism leveled at it by hardened horror-movie buffs not satiated by its inherent stylized quirkiness), this one takes the form of an Agatha Christie whodunnit, with characters being eliminated one by one (among the murder methods are having water replaced by acid and, most ingeniously, a shotgun going off 'accidentally') over an inheritance – even Poston is linked with (and suspected of) this, which detaches it all the more from Whale's infinitely superior rendition! As if to emphasize this shift from Gothic horror to murder mystery, Hammer released the film theatrically in black-and-white (as per their current standard for thrillers) despite having shot it in color…with the latter prints only cropping up as TV screenings (which is how I came across my copy) and, fairly recently, DVD!