What a Carve Up!

I've finally managed to get my hands on a copy of this movie, after searching websites, video stores, and many a failed bid on eBay. And although it's a while since I last watched it, this movie is as good, if not better, than I remember.

Sid James gets the best lines, and delivers them with the consummate ease of a true professional. Kenneth Connor is a bit like his roles in the early Carry On's - but he was very good in them. Throw in a wonderfully sinister Donald Pleasance, the typically statuesque and beautiful Shirley Eaton, and a host of other suitable strange and quirky characters, all locked in a creepy mansion where the guests begin dropping like flies one by one. It all adds up to a marvelous romp - not so much scary as very creepy, very suspenseful, and very, very funny.

When I first saw this film one evening, I only watched it because I had nothing to do. By the time it had finished, I was left raging with myself for not videoing it. Although it's not really a horror movie, the atmosphere is tremendous. Right from the first scene, the viewer is drawn in, and simply cannot stop watching. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, the movie does not really suffer from this, but rather the viewer can look out for all the clues that he/she may have missed the first time.

All in all, a film to be watched over and over again.

I caught the second half of this on TV over Christmas and had to track down a copy to see how it all began.

"...Carve Up" is an odd and fairly unique clash of different styles of film: the cheap, crass, misfiring humour of the Carry On films but set in an older, classic Ealing-style story, with a creepy atmosphere more like The Cat and The Canary, The Ghost of St. Michaels, or The Old Dark House, which the Carry-On films never even bothered to try to capture.

More's the pity, since this film feels almost like a signpost to a more interesting and better quality future for those movies, which never came about.

Kenneth Connor is a little grating, and Sid James plays Sid James. Shirley Eaton is pretty and refined but gives a stilted performance. The rest of the supporting cast are quality, though, and mark it out above average. It's much too patchy to be a great film, or even a really good one, but it is a likeable one.

Novel proof reader Ernie is reading horror novels late one night when he has interrupted by a mysterious man claiming to be the lawyer representing Ernie's late uncle who has recently passed on. Ernie and his friend Sid travel up to his uncle's creepy mansion in Yorkshire to attend the reading of the will with the rest of the unhinged family. However a murder occurs within the group and anyone could be the suspect. Ernie and Sid try to avoid joining the body count while working out who is behind the killings.

The leads here made me think this would be a Carry On style film a la `Carry on screaming'. However it is more of a gentle spoof than a festival of innuendo and excess. The plot is the story `The Ghoul' rewritten for laughs, and it contains every horror cliché that exists! From the thunderstorm, the power cut right down to the inclusion of Donald Pleasance in the cast! Of course it's never going to be a great film, rather it's clichéd and played for gentle laughs without completely making fun of the material. Instead the story is the same but the characters are made fun of and exaggerated for humour.

The two leads are also given reign to make fun and operate outside of the clichés in the story. In fact Sid draws attention to them well and it helped me laugh along with him basically giving a nudge and a wink. James is always strong in the type of role where he gets to play himself and Kenneth Connor does well as the timid jumpy side of the duo.

Overall it isn't hilarious rather gently amusing. The plot is all cliché – but then that's the point. Sid James and Kenneth Connor deliver convincingly and do well where other performers may have struggled to be relaxed and enjoyable.

What a great movie, laugh, jump with terror (ish) a classic story with a obvious ending but still funny. Sid James and Kenneth Connor are a great comedy pair.See how young Shirley Eaton is WOW. Nice film in the middle of the carry on's.