Macabre (1958)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

William Castle

Writers:

Theo Durrant (novel)
Robb White (writer)

Release Date:

October 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

The greatest showmanship in a decade... backed by a sensational ticket-selling campaign... from ALLIED ARTISTS

Plot:

A doctor's daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

William Prince	...	Doctor Rodney Barrett
Jim Backus	...	Jim Tyloe
Christine White	...	Nancy Wetherby
Jacqueline Scott	...	Polly Baron
Susan Morrow	...	Sylvia Stevenson
Philip Tonge	...	Jode Wetherby
Jonathan Kidd	...	Ed Quigley
Dorothy Morris	...	Alice Barrett
Howard Hoffman	...	Hummel
Ellen Corby	...	Miss Kushins
Linda Guderman	...	Marge
Voltaire Perkins	...	Preacher

Runtime:

72 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated | UK:X (cut) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

William Castle Productions

Trivia:

The first of William Castle's "gimmick" films. In this one, admission included an insurance policy against "death by fright" issued by Lloyds of London.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Serial Mom (1994)

I Wish I Still Had My Insurance Policy

I dragged my mother to the Cedar Movie Theater in Minneapolis to watch a triple feature horror show. There was a casket in front of the theatre. I wonder where they got that. The Attack of the Crab Monsters was one film; this one was the second; the third I can't remember. She slept through all three. I was only 10 at the time. We had seen the hype for this on TV. Lloyds of London, a million dollars, all you had to do was to die of fright. Anyway, what turned out to be a pretty average movie with the "buried alive" thing at the center wasn't nearly as interesting as those talking crustaceans. This is really a police mystery. It does have atmosphere. There is a lot of rain. Why do these graveyard things always have so much rain? It is suspenseful at times but terribly talky as well. At my age, seeing a corpse was pretty frightening. When I had a chance to see it again about thirty years later, it really seemed ordinary.