Macabre (1958)

One of my all time favorites.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Director William Castle's first gimmick film("fright insurance" was offered to moviegoers if they died of fright!). Little chance of that happening though, since this tepid film only has two scare scenes of note. Plot involves an unpopular small-town doctor(played by William Prince) whose daughter was claimed to have been kidnapped by a mysterious phone caller. He and her nurse(played by Jacqueline Scott) race to the town cemetery to locate the coffin she was said to be buried in. Meanwhile, numerous flashbacks give the back story to the characters, including the sheriff(played by Jim Backus) and a blind woman named Nancy, also deceased. Only the amusing illustrated end credits are of note here.

"Macabre" is the first entry in William Castle's cycle of horror films and it isn't bad; it's better than "13 Ghosts" but not as good as "I Saw What You Did" and nowhere near as intense as "The Tingler." A lot of the right elements are in place for a good thrill; the photography is excellent, there is plenty of claustrophobic atmosphere and the first two thirds of it is completely credible, though as a kind of detective picture rather than horror. One has to accept the fact that Dr. Barrett is a lousy detective, and that even though there is the frantic search for the missing girl, with the clock ticking, it has to be set aside periodically to allow for other plot points to go by; maddening. But ultimately Castle takes the easy way out when just a little more effort would have made "Macabre" a great film. And judging from some of his other work, Castle had it in him, it's just that at a certain point the film begins to undermine its own potential with ludicrousness. Christine White is marvelously sexy as a blind girl with a taste for adventure, and it's fun to see Jim Backus in a role as a heavy, speaking in his natural voice. Ellen Corby is stronger than the part that she is given, which could have been more consequential if she hadn't been awarded such a limited and repetitive repertoire of lines to say. "Macabre" isn't successful at all at passing the blame for its caper on individuals not involved in the situation, and that's fine; the confusion about where the girl is, who might have taken her, and why is enough to instill a kind of unsettled confusion that sets the right mood. It's definitely worthwhile as a kind of period piece as it works towards its Cold War-ish conclusion, but one wonders how well it would play if Ingmar Bergman had taken a look at the script, and it wouldn't have taken a lot to bring it up to that level; "Macabre" just falls short.

Learning of a great treachery against his daughter, a man and his wife race to the graveyard containing her before a deranged madman can win out in his quest for revenge.An exceptionally flawed and not really all that worthwhile William Castle gimmick effort, only this time the gimmick isn't that great and the movie's little better. The central premise to this one is quite chilling, with the abduction of the daughter and being buried in a grave that requires a man and wife to find her, means we get some incredibly wonderful Gothic atmosphere with the scenes in the cemetery that are quite creepy in design and chilling in how the story's built up. These scenes here and their bantering about where she is and where to dig are really the only parts of this that's worthwhile, as the rest of the time it doesn't have a whole lot to really get interested in. As it goes around with all the potential suspects and why they're interested in seeking revenge, the flashback nature of these participants and why they're out for revenge is not in the slightest bit interesting and drags the movie to a halt as it goes about this section of the movie, dropping all potential horror angles and does so for the majority of the film's running time. Even more so, the fact that the central premise doesn't allow for a lot of time dealing with the graveyard search forces this upon the viewer, a rather unfortunate handicap right off the top. It's got its moments, but not a whole lot of them.Today's Rating: Unrated/PG: Mild Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

It is one of the quirks of movie history that the main reason this pot-boiler of a mystery is remembered is because it was the first of producer/director William Castle's gimmick scare films. The gimmick?--A $1,000.00 life insurance policy issued by Lloyd's of London given to each lucky theater patron to insure them against death by fright. A safe bet, since the movie delivers only one brief shock moment in its 70-odd minute running time. The gimmick, aided by the movie's rivetingly eerie advertising poster (featuring a hooded grinning skull and the faces of three screaming gals) helped bring in droves of customers to theater box-offices all across 1958 America.Based on a round-robin mystery, "The Marble Forest", written by members of the Mystery Writers of America, "Macabre" presents the dilemma of a small-town doctor whose three-year-old daughter goes missing, presumably kidnapped, and is possibly buried alive! Other characters include the doctor's office nurse, the unsavory sheriff, the attractive other woman, the creepy housekeeper, the creepy undertaker, the creepy but expendable cemetery-keeper, and the aging millionaire with a cardiac condition. There are flashbacks, hysterical outbursts, melodramatic utterances, frantic diggings in a very dark and overgrown cemetery, and anyone could be a suspect. That being said, it also follows that nobody in the movie is a very sympathetic character, and the movie doesn't show off director Castle's talents as a scare-meister to great advantage.Still, it's worth a watch, to see what all the brouhaha was about. After all, it was made quickly and cheaply, and made back something like $5 million in box-office revenue. The DVD has just been made available by Warner Bros. on-demand, so why wait?