Castle of Evil

One part Roger Corman Poe movie, one part "Ten Little Indians," and one part "Stagecoach," in that six disparate (but stereotypical) character types are thrown in together in a deadly situation, "Castle of Evil" is cheap, but not bad, if you go with it. Six suspects of the murder of a vindictive scientist are gathered together by the victim in his creepy castle and told to ferret out the killer among them; the others will then become heirs to the dead man's fortune. Except that the dead man may not be quite as dead as they think. Talky, static scenes are offset by some genuinely creepy moments. The cast of veterans is for the most part fine (Virginia Mayo as an aging working girl is the weak link) though it does look a bit like the horror version of one of those A.C. Lyles old-timer Westerns of the same era. An odd sci-fi angle fights the horror angle a bit, but not fatally so. Worth a look...if you can find it.

I only recently got a chance to see this again, last having seen it as a little kid. It's not breaking any new ground but I think it stands as a good example of the 'Old Dark House' variety spook movie. The technical aspects are the weak spot here, it's blandly lit and everything is presented in a matter-of-fact way... sucking out most of the atmosphere (but not all). The actors all do a good job with the minimal writing. I was particularly taken with Virginia Mayo who seemed to actually be enjoying it somewhat.

NO, it's not really scary... but it's got a mood to it and a few creepy moments that kept me watching... and frankly it's more entertaining that most of the bottom-shelf stuff I find on Amazon lately.

The above quote, as insane as it is, is from this odd little horror film. In fact a lot of this film is insane...and watchable IF you like schlocky movies.

When the film starts, six folks who hated Kovic (and vice-versa) are invited to the dead guy's mansion to discuss his will. He promises to give them his fortune but they need to figure out which of them booby-trapped his experiment and made him into a horrid dead guy who is missing part of his face. However, it's all a pretext just to get them in the house to kill them one by one.

The premise is ordinary enough but the execution is rather poor. And the plot is just nuts--with zombies and lasers and all sorts of silliness that simply don't belong in a movie! Overall, a rather stupid but oddly enjoyable mess of a film.

I had originally seen this on creature features on channel 5 in new jersey and back then it was scary,recently re watched it on you tube,in a very well recreated creature features with commercials.just like i remembered it,a creepy old chiller.back in the day this was scary.old castle,secret doors,a ghoul,and yes a player piano.with some good actors in it led by the late great Scott Brady(destination inner space)Lisa Gaye(shake rattle and rock)Virginia Mayo(white heat)and Hugh Marlowe(day the earth stood still)i enjoyed this little horror flick even though its no masterpiece and not as good as the original house on haunted hill.but it does have its moments.they don't make them like this anymore and if they tried remaking it there would be lots of overdone cg effects,6 pout of 10.

It's a shame, movies like this are generally what I'm looking for, but `Castle of Evil' doesn't even manage the level of suspense of a `Dark Shadows' episode - and is about as talky and stagy as that series. On the whole, this movie is down there somewhere with the Philippino `Blood Island' series, and the more than competent cast gives some of the most wooden performances of their careers. It is easy to see that Hugh Marlowe was just about ready to begin his interminable run on `Another World' because this is about as close to the Soaps as horror ever comes.

The plot is a tried-and-true midnight will reading preceding the six people locked in a house knowing one of them is a murderer routine. Fair enough, but the movie betrays what interest the audience might have in trying to resolve the mystery by showing us the murderer in the first few minutes, then even going so far as to demonstrate the means used for the slayings before the mystery is even fully underway. What could have been an interesting group of characters, each suspecting the others and forming alliances and theories degenerates into a group of non-entities being stalked by a Slasher-type disfigured killer (with minimal gore). The contrived ending seems far, far too long in coming.

Natives of Nassau will be offended by the racism of the script and hispanics of all backgrounds will no doubt take issue with the pronunciation of the character Lupe's name (sounds like `Loopy'). Scott Brady seems to be dating one of his daughter's friends, and poor Hugh Marlowe just looks confused as Virginia Mayo's tramp character (`just call me Sable, dear') comes onto him. Overall, one gets the feeling everyone in the cast just wanted to get their check and forget about the whole ordeal. Perhaps we should do them a favor and do the same.