While George Romero was off making his iconic flesh eaters in 1968, four years earlier UCLA alumni Jack Hill made his first film outside of the Roger Corman camp, and it unfortunately didn't get released till Romero's film did. Hill's film is, of course, far more campy and a typical "B" movie, but it's hard to deny how right Hill gets it as far as inbred backwoods nightmare comedies before they became the fad they were in the 1970s.
We have a family, led by chauffeur Lon Chaney Jr (such a charming old coot, who doesn't want any hate and loves the girls and the weird retarded boy played by Sid Haig), and they're being paid a visit by a couple of relatives and a lawyer with a Hitler mustache. But they've entered into the spider's lair, to put it in a way, as the girls can't let anyone "tell", and thus find some ways to try (and usually succeed) in murder. It opens with a scene that has not much to do with central plot, as a black driver comes up to the house and is killed while sticking his head into the window- featuring one of the girls uproariously brandishing two knives- and undercutting most of the scenes is a dark, vicious, but somehow playful sense of humor.
For example, the nephew or whomever it is that comes to visit- isn't he the nicest guy? It's things like him that make it so enjoyable, that there's such a playful, deranged quality to Sig Haig (in one of his best performances) as he appears out of that wacky lift, or when he hunts a cat, scuse me "rabbit", or when sees the tongue poke out of cheek as Chaney tries to rationalize the dead bodies and danger of death coming around the bend. Just seeing everyone at the dinner table is entertaining. It helps that Hill has, through his cheesy but firm script, a very good cinematographer- better than the material would get if it were a total Corman production- and there's a good composer as well behind the material. It won't be remembered as great art, but it should have a place in any video collector who likes their acting bold and bizarre, and the fun comes in what is flipped around a little bit in expectations; I loved seeing the bit where the lawyer sees Haig about to go through the 'secret' door in the garage, the awkward silence a perfect comment on one of the oldest clichés in the book. 7.5/10
We have a family, led by chauffeur Lon Chaney Jr (such a charming old coot, who doesn't want any hate and loves the girls and the weird retarded boy played by Sid Haig), and they're being paid a visit by a couple of relatives and a lawyer with a Hitler mustache. But they've entered into the spider's lair, to put it in a way, as the girls can't let anyone "tell", and thus find some ways to try (and usually succeed) in murder. It opens with a scene that has not much to do with central plot, as a black driver comes up to the house and is killed while sticking his head into the window- featuring one of the girls uproariously brandishing two knives- and undercutting most of the scenes is a dark, vicious, but somehow playful sense of humor.
For example, the nephew or whomever it is that comes to visit- isn't he the nicest guy? It's things like him that make it so enjoyable, that there's such a playful, deranged quality to Sig Haig (in one of his best performances) as he appears out of that wacky lift, or when he hunts a cat, scuse me "rabbit", or when sees the tongue poke out of cheek as Chaney tries to rationalize the dead bodies and danger of death coming around the bend. Just seeing everyone at the dinner table is entertaining. It helps that Hill has, through his cheesy but firm script, a very good cinematographer- better than the material would get if it were a total Corman production- and there's a good composer as well behind the material. It won't be remembered as great art, but it should have a place in any video collector who likes their acting bold and bizarre, and the fun comes in what is flipped around a little bit in expectations; I loved seeing the bit where the lawyer sees Haig about to go through the 'secret' door in the garage, the awkward silence a perfect comment on one of the oldest clichés in the book. 7.5/10