I've wanted to see HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE for nigh onto half a century, since I first noticed it in Steven Scheuer's (sp?) movie guide and saw that it starred Sherlock Holmes! By which I meant Basil Rathbone. I wanted to see it because.... well, to understand how Basil Rathbone could be in a movie called HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE. To my youthful mind, full of 1960s idealism and similar nonsense, it all seemed as unlikely as.... well, as Basil Rathbone being in a movie called HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE, if not more so. Doubtless, since he was Sherlock Holmes, he would explain and it would be obvious ever after.
Well, decades have passed and I have become wiser -- some would say more cynical, but that's just the attitude I've come to expect from the 'oi polloi. Many other people have played Holmes, although none so entertainingly, and still my interest in seeing HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE has not slackened, until this evening, when I came home from the barber, freshly shorn, to find on my dvr....guess what?
If you guessed HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE, then you've guessed correctly and you must explain how you did it. Once upon a time I would have found it awful beyond words, but time has taught me many words, -- most of which I cannot use here -- the meaning of Ham & Bud and Paulie Shore, and I've seen Buster Keaton in THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI, and Mickey Rooney reduced to a bit part in NIGHT IN THE MUSEUM 2, and Maya Angelou in CALYPSO HEAT WAVE, a Sam Katzman movie. So, after noting that 1960s pop/country is not one of my preferred genres, that the cobbled plot of hillbillies, haunted houses and spies is just as unimportant as all the other movies which serve to string together teenage songs in sub-AIP fare, I will note that Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine and Basil Rathbone perform their scene with a guy in a gorilla costume as well as they can be expected to and it is simply average awful. Even if I think Don Bowman, playing Jeepers is just how I would have imagined a character named Jeepers in 1967.
