Hillbillys in a Haunted House

I visited Nashville in 1998 and paid my respects to the great and the good of country music by spending an afternoon in the hallowed precincts of the Country Music Hall of Fame ,where one exhibit was devoted to the movies featuring the great names of the genre . I was left reflecting that by and large the movie industry has not been kind to country music and that most of the movies given exhibition space were low budget productions from poverty stricken regional studios ,rather than the big Hollywood companies . This lame brain picture exemplifies the kind of no brain movies they turned out and the patronising stance of such studios to their audience and the music it contained ,being a parade of stereotypes which pokes fun at country people and their music of choice Ferlin Husky plays a country singer who is stranded for a night in the eponymous house alongside his " girl singer " and business manager .It is a suitably creepy place -festooned with cobwebs and adorned with secret passages .It also happens to be the base for a spy network headed by a mysterious Oriental lady and her henchmen -slumming horror greats lon Chaney ,John Carradine and the wonderful Basil Rathbone .Not to mention a gorilla ! Do the musical trio triumph over their adversaries and make it to the big Nashville show ? Well , if you like country music and admire the work of the veteran actors I name checked earlier its just about worth watching to find out . By any objective standards this is dreadful but at least Rathbone and Carradine are worth watching although somewhat the worse for wear physically.However it is the presence of country music great Merle Haggard doing two numbers and the involvement of lesser but talented artists like Sonny James and Molly Bee that are mainly instrumental in sustaining interest

The last 20 minutes are devoted to a concert that has nothing to do with the plot and is unimaginatively staged and shot but whose peformances are historically fascinating and help make me like the movie more than it really deserves . Now will someone in the movie industry treat this great music -The true national music of America -with the respect due to it ?

Frankenstein met the Wolfman, and they both met Abbott and Costello, so why shouldn't country music greats Ferlin Husky and Merle Haggard meet Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney, Jr? No reason a'tall. I was hoping for a real hoedown here, even though I'm not sure what a hoedown is. Well, actually, a hoedown seems to be a "square dance." At least that's what the Merriam Webster link on my toolbar came up with, in which case a hoedown isn't what I was hoping for, after all. A Ferlin Husky-Lon Chaney, Jr. duet on a country classic, perhaps "Your Cheatin' Heart," or something else from the pen of Hank Williams, would have been nice, but, alas, it was not to be. As a result, "Hillbillies in a Haunted House" fails to live up to its considerable potential. I suppose that for Basil Rathbone, who would die in the year of this film's release, appearing in this movie is no worse than doing an infomercial for a Helsinki baldness cure, which is what aged, down on their luck actors seem to do these days, although it would have been nice to see the screen's greatest Sherlock Holmes go out with more style than is evident here.

This is one of those movies that is so bad, it,s good. I believe the movie is considered to be one of the 50 worst movies ever made and I would't argue with that. But seriously if you are a fan of the old universal horror films as I am, you will find the movie interesting if only to see Lon Chaney jr, John Caradine and Basil Rathbone together in their latter years. And really it is a sad tribute to such a talentd and distingushed actor as Basil Rathbone that this horrid movie was his last. I still can't concive of such a wild combination of people together on a screen. Lon Chaney jr., Basil Rathbone, John Caradine along with Merle Haggard, Lefty Frazell and Sony James and a bombshell blonde in Nashville. That's about as crazy as a movie can get!

I love exploitation flicks, but this is the bottom of the barrel. This sequel to LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS is trash of a new kind. No MUNSTERS or BEVERLY HILLBILLIES episode was ever this lame. Ferlin Husky is terrible and the guy who plays Jeepers is a complete idiot. Joi Lansing, although pretty with a great body, is a poor replacement for Mamie Van Doren in the first film, as Boots Malone.

I gave this a 2 instead of a 1 because of the title and John Carradine maintains his dignity (somehow). Basil Rathbone looks uncomfortable. Lon Chaney, Jr. looks to be in pain. Linda Ho is boring. Terrible music and creepy color. Best performance = Anatole the gorilla. LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS was bad enough to be fun..but this one - sorry folks.

HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE (1967) * (D: Jean Yarbrough) A terrible film, badly directed by Yarbrough. His last film, and possibly Basil Rathbone's too (or perhaps AUTOPSY OF A GHOST). Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine can't help matters either - all three are wasted. They should have been put to better use even taking into account the low budget. Rathbone in particular appears disinterested (and who can blame him?) Just barely tolerable to see the three actors, but for completists only. Many awful tunes.