Haunted Honeymoon (1986)

People are voting emotionally.

Must See Movie...

A Major Disappointment

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Larry Abbot, speaker in the radio horror shows of Manhattan Mystery Theater wants to marry. For the marriage he takes his fiancée home to the castle where he grew up among his eccentric relatives. His uncle decides that he needs to be cured from a neurotic speech defect and exaggerated bursts of fear: he gives him a shock therapy with palace ghosts.You really can't dislike any film with Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner and Dom DeLuise. I mean, that is just guaranteed to be fun to watch no matter what happens. But this is really pretty tame. Some good moments of humor, surrounded by lots of just average scenery. And at a very short run time (barely over an hour), it seems odd they didn't have enough jokes to fill the script.

There's a lot going for this under-rated good, but not great, "spoof" of recent and old "B-grade murder-haunted house" films. It will remind you of everything from Bob Hope to the Bowery Boys, The 3 Stooges, Abbott & Costello, to "Murder By Death" and "Clue". Filmed in England. with pretty good effects for 1986. Why the low ratings? So many rubber masks, wigs, fake coffins, intentional wires and strings. The ending is confusing as it ends up back at the radio station before they are even married. Was it all just a dream, everything at Aunt Kate's creepy old mansion, with hidden passages and an ancient butler and maid? Dom DeLuise actually won the "Razzie" award for best cross dresser. He is a riot as crazy Aunt Kate. Confusing? Gida and Gene get married twice: First at the "haunted" mansion and again in the city. I suspect that maybe Gilda was already sick and they had to wrap it up quite quickly? It's her last film and it's only 82 min. I enjoyed it because of her bravo performance alone and that's why I rated it up so high. Is it a great film? Hardly, but everybody seemed to be having a lot of fun making it!

Having heard for years how awful Haunted Honeymoon was and long wanting to see Gilda Radner in her last movie, I taped this last night while the Emmys were on. Now that I've seen it, I can now say nobody in the cast and crew have anything to be ashamed about. I love the performances in the radio studio with Radner and Gene Wilder playing characters in a show with the same title as film. Dom DeLuise is amusing as Aunt Kate. But I want to really praise the hard-of-hearing butler Pfister (Bryan Pringle) who, because Wilder tells him his fiancée is slightly deaf, keeps shouting at Radner. And, yes, like many other comments here, I love Wilder's using someone else's legs as his in front of policemen. I also loved the "Ballin' the Jack" number between DeLuise and Radner and Radner's joke about the bug on the windshield. So in short, if you're a fan of all three stars, seek this out by all means!

Okay, so it wasn't everyone's best work. If you look at it with no presupposed ideas about everyone, you will find a nice funny movie. There are bits which are priceless. If you think of the humor they were all trying to put forth with Gilda so sick and Gene so worried, maybe it will help to understand somewhat why more attention wasn't paid to a script or to more proper editing. I still find it a breathe of fresh air compared to a lot of movies released in the last 20 years. And isn't it rather funny to see an Englishman do an American accent badly, which was what they were supposed to be doing? It is a comedy, for crying out loud. It wasn't made as a movie to win a Nobel peace prize, but I am sure you will smile and even chuckle a little. Pop some popcorn, settle back, and enjoy.