Gioco mortale

The old Castle is gone, and the one that emerges wants to focus on black humor, and a kind of family friendly suspense. This considered, it's not so bad. The star is young Pat Cardi, a rich orphan sent to live with his globe-trotting war hero uncle, Nigel Green. Cardi befriends Mary Badham, who is being sent to live with her aunt Linda Lawson on the same island. The two are warned not to go near the old deserted hotel, so of course, that's where they head first, only to encounter a shark in the murky swimming pool (the same shark stock footage is shown several times throughout the film) and they sense danger all around, but the grownups auntie Lawson and Robert Pickering (a detective hired to safely transport Cardi) don't believe them, and are busily involved with each other.

Nigel Green is amusing, from his judo practice to his hammy meal presentation wearing a big chef's hat, but he's up-front with Cardi. He's out to kill the kid for his fortune, via hypnosis, poison mushrooms, the pool shark, whatever it takes. It becomes 'who can outwit who - the kids versus the uncle, to survive. There's nothing really scary here, and the slight wackiness of Green keeps the viewer from feeling any real suspense, but it is sort of a fun watch.

I prefer Castle's acid pit or blood filled bathtub for memorable gimmicks but I'd give this a solid 6/10.

Although I haven't seen the movie in well over twenty years, I distinctly remember some classically original scenes--a shark circling in the swimming pool is at the forefront of these scenes.

There is a charm to the movie hard to put one's finger on. Perhaps it's a film that begs (and succeeds) to bring out the adventurous core-child in each of us.

The problem: I've been searching for this movie for over twenty years. If I can buy a copy from someone, or if someone knows when it might be aired....PLEASE let me know.

Thank you, Jay

William Castle perhaps wasn't the greatest horror director in history, but he remains - and deservedly so - a favorite of many fans who don't take themselves, nor the genre, too serious. Castle is most legendary for his gimmick-featuring semi-classics, like "The Tingler" and "House on Haunted Hill", but he also made a variety of lesser-known films, like the child-friendly, but certainly not too childish, "Let's Kill Uncle".

When a millionaire (cameo by Castle himself) dies in a vicious car crash, his only son is escorted by a police officer to go and live on the island mansion of his uncle Kevin Harrison; - his only living relative and a former war-hero. The arrogant kid, Barnaby, and the police officer arrive on the island first, and make friends with a woman and her niece. When uncle Kevin finally arrives, he makes it abundantly clear to Barnaby straight away that he intends to kill him, because he's broke and needs to inherit the complete fortune of his brother. Since the adults don't believe him, Barnaby teams up with the little niece and decide it's best to kill the uncle before he kills them.

The goofy but effective premise only kicks in gear when Nigel Green (as uncle) arrives on the island in his plan, and for some strange reason this takes more than half an hour. The start is thus slow, but Green compensates for this tremendously with a fantastically over-the-top performance. The death traps are also very ingenious with a shark in the hotel pool, tarantulas, and a walk towards the edge of cliff while hypnotized. The ending is a bit of a downer, but by then the film already earned a place in your heart.

I remember this movie from my youth. I must have seen it for the first and last time around the mid-70's. I too finally found a DVD copy on the internet. I have always been drawn to see this movie in it's entirety, for I do not remember much of the movie besides the old hotel and the shark in the swimming pool. (Cheesy clips of the shark really "age" this movie compared to today's fix capabilities.) Approaching the young age of 40, perhaps I was trying to recapture some of my youth. None the less, the movie was a thrill to see after all of these years. I will keep it in my collection and let my boys watch it as I did in my younger days. Nigel Green is quite good in this movie, I must admit.

One of Castle's oddest entries concerns an orphaned boy who is due to get an inheritance. However, his evil uncle has plans to kill the boy before he can collect. Between the boy and a girl he meets on the island where he's staying with friends, they cook up a plan to thwart the uncle's plans. There is a long sequence near the end involving hypnotism, a shark and a pool that is too strange for words.