TheOldDarkHouse1963

The Old Dark House (1963)

As a collector and lover of old movies I’ve always enjoyed The Old Dark House (1932), Hammer Films, and director William Castle. So when I found out that William Castle had directed a remake of Old Dark House for Hammer Films I was excited to check it out. Then of course I found out that it was incredibly hard to find, but eventually saw that it was part of the collection that came out on The William Castle Film Collection from Columbia Pictures.

If you are familiar with the original movie you will notice that the story has been changed quite a bit here. The movie opens up with an American named Tom (played by the underrated Tom Posten) trying to deliver a car to his eccentric, but friendly roommate. But when he arrives at the exclusive London club his friend begs him to deliver the car to his family’s estate. He agrees, but when he arrives his friend is dead! Soon Tom is pulled into the mystery of who is killing off the strange members of the Femm family. Though it is pretty clear that it has to do with some of the family history and it’s wealth.

So again if you are familiar with the original movie you can tell that this one is much different. The other thing that I didn’t mention in my plot synopsis is that while the original is a more serious horror/mystery movie this one is played for laughs. There really isn’t much of a mystery here, and the killings are made to be funny with goofy one-liners and silly situations. It isn’t fair to compare this movie to the original for the review I suppose. But I do have to say that I didn’t’ really find the movie that funny, and since it is going for laughs that is a real problem. The characters of the various family members are supposed to be quirky and interesting, but they just really come off as annoying. The only saving grace of the movie is that Tom Posten does an excellent job as the lead. He takes material that isn’t that good and makes it worth watching. But when he isn’t onscreen (thankfully not often) the movie isn’t that interesting. Even the supposed twist at the end is pretty obvious to anyone that has ever seen movies like this before. All in all this is a harmless, but disappointingly mediocre movie.

As I’ve already mentioned this movie is part of the William Castle Film Collection. Unlike several of the other movies in the set there aren’t any special features on this movie. The only thing on the DVD with it is the theatrical trailer. While I’m not a huge fan of this movie I still recommend that everyone go out and pick up the Collection because it has some really great movies on it.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer