Macabre sérénade

"House Of Evil" aka "Dance Of Death" of 1968 is the first of four infamous and odd last movies starring the great Boris Karloff and directed by Jack Hill and Juan Ibánez. Unlike "Snake People" (1971), "The Incredible Invasion" (also 1971) and "The Fear Chamber" (1972) which were all released after Karloff's death in 1969, "House Of Evil" was released in 1968, when Karloff was still alive. "House Of Evil" is regarded by many as the worst of these four movies, which are without doubt all rather crappy, but definitely have their entertainment value as the unintentional comedies they are. I personally prefer "The Fear Chamber" and "House Of Evil" over the other two, simply for the reason that the lack of the slightest logic is even more extreme, and since there is no suspense whatsoever in any of the movies, the lack of logic increases the unintentional fun factor.

The odd story (I don't know if I can really call it a 'plot') is set somewhere in Europe in the 19th century. After some girls are murdered and found with their eyes ripped out, Mathias Morteval (Karloff), an enthusiastic organ player, invites his few remaining relatives to his bizarre mansion, which is full of eerie toys. His kinfolk includes Lucy Durant (Julissa), who is engaged to one of the police inspectors investigating the murders.

I won't give away more of the story, but I can assure you that it is quite bizarre throughout the movie. There are some very funny moments, especially some things Karloff's character says. Boris Karloff was without any doubt one of the most brilliant and important icons of the Horror genre who ever lived, and he manages to award this odd movie with a tiny bit of his greatness, and although (or because) his role is (due to a poor script and and directing) in no way scary, it looks like he deliberately plays it with a sense of humor. Just like in the movie's successors "Snake People" and "The Fear Chamber", the female lead is once again played by Julissa.

Most of he supporting performances are hilariously amateurish, the cinematography is terrible and the locations and sceneries are beneath contempt. The storyline lacks the least bit of logic and the dialogue often does not make the slightest sense. It is the poor story and dialogue, however, that makes this movie so entertaining to watch. "House Of Evil" may be an extremely crappy attempt of a movie, but it is certainly as (unintentionally) funny as it is bad. Fans of Ed Wood's movies should be very amused, I personally found it hilarious. Crappy but entertaining nevertheless, and definitely worth watching since there's Boris Karloff in it and due to the fun factor. 3/10

Julissa plays Lucy Durant, a young woman who travels with her fiancee Charles Beasler (Andres Garcia) to visit ancient relative Matthias Morteval (Boris Karloff), in what is a pretty standard period horror. It involves a reading of the will, the typical greedy heirs, and people regularly getting bumped off. The killings are somewhat amusing, because the manufacture of death-dispensing "toys" has been a family pastime for ages.

This was one of four Mexican-American horror films headlined by Karloff that represented the legendary genre actors' last work in movies. It's obviously very low budget, and as a result is very crude. It's also seriously under-lit. It's talky and slowly paced, but its plot is apparently more coherent than those in the other three films in this series. There's mild use of gore, some sexy ladies (Beatriz Baz plays Cordelia, another of those potential heirs), a certain seedy atmosphere, and so-so music composed by Enrico C. Cabiati and Alicia Urreta.

The cast is nondescript performance-wise (that includes the people doing the dubbed-in American voices), although it must be said that Quintin Bulnes (as the dubious Dr. Horvath) and Manuel Alvarado (as the portly Morgenstern Morteval) have great character faces that wouldn't have been out of place in a Universal horror feature of the 30s and 40s.

The real saving grace is Karloff, who's wonderful as always. While it will be dispiriting to his fans to see him reduced to appearing in such schlock, he makes this more entertaining than it has any right to be.

While ultimately underwhelming, "House of Evil" / "Dance of Death" does have that irresistible "late show" quality that always appeals to this viewer.

Five out of 10.

Worth a watch if you enjoy the low-budget, B-grade horror of the '60's. No masterpiece, but Karloff is always a treat and the sets are suitably atmospheric. The acting will win no prizes but was ok. All in all, I found the movie watchable - and that's good enough for this genre.

I've now seen three out of the four Mexican horror movies that that Boris Karloff appeared in (just The Incredible Invasion to go), and of those, Fear Chamber is the worst. But House of Evil comes close.

Karloff plays Matthias Morteval, who summons his relatives to his 'old, dark' home to reveal the contents of his will. After Morteval finally dies, his guests are killed one by one by the old man's mechanical toys. Police inspector Charles Beasler (Andrés García), boyfriend of heiress Lucy Durant (Julissa), comes to suspect that his current case is somehow connected to Morteval and his family.

What a total mess of a movie. Karloff is fine, but the script and direction are all over the place, while the mechanical toys are ridiculous. To make matters worse, much of the action is accompanied by horribly intrusive discordant organ music that really grates on the nerves.

After lots of dull nonsense, very little of which makes sense, it is revealed that Morteval is still alive and has been orchestrating the murders.

2/10. For Karloff completists only.

In the late 1960s after a long and productive career, Boris Karloff, who was then in his late 70s and in poor health, was asked if he planned to retire. His reply was "He who rests...rusts! Not me. I plan to die in harness." And that's just what he did...almost. He died at 81 just two months after completing a series of four Mexican pictures. While his persistence was admirable, his final cinematic efforts were not. In fact they were pretty awful rivaling the movies that Bela Lugosi made at the end of his career for Ed Wood. This wasn't Karloff's fault. In fact he seemed more energetic in these last four films then he had been in the previous four bigger budget movies where he had been primarily seated in a wheelchair. The problem was in the way these Mexican titles were put together.

His health and the high altitude kept Karloff from going to Mexico City to shoot the films and so his scenes were all shot in Hollywood with an American director (Jack Hill) and an American script. Once his scenes were in the can, the Mexican portions using Mexican actors were filmed and then Boris' scenes were edited in. Director Hill, who had made the cult favorite SPIDER BABY with Lon Chaney Jr, was an old hand at creating composite films. Usually foreign films were purchased and then American scenes were shot and fitted into them. For these Mexican movies the process was reversed. Once back in Mexico, the producers rewrote the original scripts and did pretty much what they wanted including the addition of unsavory and rather violent material.

Fortunately Boris died before he had a chance to see these hybrid curiosities and so it is left for fans of BK to make of them what they will. Unquestionably the best of the lot was the first screenplay, HOUSE OF EVIL, which recycles the story of the dying patriarch and the greedy relatives gathered for the reading of his will. The twist here is that they are bumped off by his collection of mechanical toys. Next came ISLE OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE, a tale of zombies with Karloff as the head of a voodoo cult. The third to be filmed was THE INCREDIBLE INVASION which borrows from Karloff's THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936) and adds outer space aliens. Finally there was THE FEAR CHAMBER which is the weakest so you could say that each movie got progressively worse.

The first two were released a year after being completed. The last two had to wait until 1971 which was two years after Karloff died. All four played the drive-in circuit as double features and were quickly forgotten. In 1987, twenty years after the films were made, a company called Parasol Group Ltd released them on VHS in an edited form and gave them new titles. They became, in order, DANCE OF DEATH, CULT OF THE DEAD, ALIEN TERROR, and TORTURE ZONE. All four are characterized by cheap sets, unimaginative photography, and are badly dubbed. CULT and ZONE have brief nudity and some graphic violence. It is these rather flat looking VHS copies that VCI has issued on DVD as part of their Sprocket Vault series. For BK completists only...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.