The Haunted Bog’s spooky comedy page.

Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein | Abbot and Costello Meet the Invisible Man | Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla | The Ghost Breakers | The Horror of it All |Scared to Death (1947)| The Smiling Ghost | Whistling in the Dark | Zombies on Broadway |

The whole point of this site is horror. Oh sure, you’ll find the occasional thriller, or sci-fi flick up for review, but only when they supply some serious shudders. However, my obsessive mania to see and critique every film even remotely related to the horror genre has led me to repeated viewings of what most commonly be dubbed as “old dark house comedies”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t exclude any film from my main collection of reviews for being tongue in cheek, or even an outright farce. Just as long as they raise a goose-bump or two.

No the films you’ll find here are from a particular breed. Most of them are timid, yacky things from 1940 and change, filled with padding and unfunny shtick. At their best, they were usually created as vehicles for popular radio comics and at their worst, for washed up vaudevillians and soon to be forgotten up-and-comers. They’re the type of films I used to watch on the local UHF station when I was 5 because my Mom wouldn’t let me see actual horror films. (Sort of a hippie at the time, I think she was trying to keep me from developing a taste for the gruesome. Didn’t quite work out.)

Not every film here is awful, mind you, some are good for a few giggles. Some even have a few creepy elements. (The 3 Stooges were masters of the pseudo-spooky flick. As a kid, I loved them for it, and still do.) But oh so many of these films boast neither, using spooky goings-on as a framework for lame wisecracks. I still grade on a scale of 1-10, but keep in mind it’s a sliding scale. (You might say that this is my own little remedial class.)

I had no idea that Ann Coulter had been a screenwriter in the early 40’s! Sure, I knew she was an immortal succubus, but still.) The film does offer up some cheap racist humor in the personage of Willie Best, but compared to other films of its era, it’s not that repellant.

6.5

1.0

I’m not quite sure if I should include this film here, or give it a mini review in the BogBlog section. It isn’t normally considered a comedy, but as a horror film it is uniquely un-horrific, and it certainly doesn’t earn its laurels as a mystery.  I’ve decided to place it here as the film not only posses the typical endless jokey 1940’s patter, but at least half the cast could be labeled comedy relief. (Put down the razor! Put down the razor, it’s not that bad!)

 The first scene finds two forensic investigators (I think they were just called “doctors” back then) about to autopsy the titular scared to death-ee. The pair continually stumbles over lines far too silly to have ever actually been mouthed by mortal lips. This first tableau gives us a perfect encapsulation of what the upcoming film will be like. Since this is a 40’s B pic (one of many films shot as quickly and cheaply as possible simply to take up space in a matinee double-feature) we will be featured to much dialogue in lieu of action. In some rare cases when the writing is competent, one hardly even notices this, but for the most part films of this nature tend to leave one drained and drowsy. This round, viewers have lucked out as the dialogue in ‘Scared’ is far too ludicrous to produce the dreaded life-sucking effect. No human being has ever talked like the folks in this film. (“Ah Leonid. I was warned you appear -as one of your illusions- out of thin air!”)

 And thank Nyarlathotep you don’t run into folks like these every day.  One of the primary flaws of ‘Scared’ is a distinct lack of characters to root for. Mollly Lamont plays Laura Van Ee, the dead lady who narrates her own final hours amidst cheesy “woo-woo” wavy flashback effects. (The whole post-mortem remembrance might have been a neat trick, but it basically wound up as just a pointless form of scene transition consisting of the corpse saying something stupidly obvious.) From the very outset she is revealed to be a callous, gold-digging bitch and spends the rest of the film living down to this first impression. You might think this would give us some empathy for her husband (Roland Varno) and his father Dr. Van Ee (George Zucco, who else?) but they are penned in the typical monochromatic style of 1940’s melodramatic male leads. (They are not evil and therefore seem to have no characteristics at all.) Nat Pendleton plays ‘Bull’ Raymond, a recently discharged cop whose just hoping for a big ol’ murder or two to get him reinstated on the force. Our most egregious example of “comedy” relief, we are supposed to believe that this man managed to become an officer in the first place despite being given every indication that he still needs mommy to pin his mittens on his jacket so that he doesn’t lose them. He finds an antagonist of sorts in ace reporter Terry Lee (Douglas Fowley), a tactless intrusive misogynist. Not that I can blame him that much; his girlfriend ( Joyce Compton)  is a mélange of every ditzy blonde stereotype ever conceived. The only cool character is of course Bela Lugosi. He’s got a midget!

 The vast bulk of the film is bargain basement melodrama at its worst; endless stilted soliloquies, hazily established backstory, secret passages, skulking figures, disappearing/reappearing corpses, and clandestine assaults. Every now and again a villainous man in a green mask peers in on the proceedings as if in a different film.
As I mentioned, this cannot be labeled a mystery thriller. Those paying attention might notice that the green man appears near or attacks every possible suspect in the cast. Not to be spoilerific, but the final revelation is basically just a lateral step from “I’m Mrs. Voorhees, an old friend of the family.”
And while we’re discussing the ending with all the pointless dialogue spouted in this film (hell, by both the living and the dead) you’d think they might have made the final conclusion a little clearer.  Was Bela involved with the scheme, or just tickled by the outcome? The doctors say they will report their findings to the police. What findings? Can you charge someone with murder by hypnosis?  By emotion? What a trial that would be! Hell, this would have made a better movie than the one we just saw. For crap’s sake, I’m a fan of subtlety and like to use my imagination, but why at the very end of a totally bold-faced excursion, and why must it be at the expense of narrative closure? 

There are some things to like about ‘Scared’. Bela is always a pleasure, and he plays his somewhat thin character of the sinister hypnotist to the hilt. (Though he is terribly underused.) The plot is blessedly un-convoluted, despite a surplus of useless characters. It’s also nice to see a color film this old; in fact, this is some of the only color footage featuring Bela in existence. Being both short and generally silly it never becomes as mindlessly punishing as some of its compatriots. (Won’t watch ‘The Corpse Vanishes’ again. Not even on MST3K. Nope, can’t make me.) It’s a waste of time, but I actually had some fun with it. Fair enough.

3.5

‘The Smiling Ghost’ (1941)

There are some films I just refuse to watch all the way through. I know it’s unfair to comment on or grade a film I haven’t seen all of, but tough titties. The film starts off intolerably cliché. Old dark houses, familial curses, inheritances, blah, blah, blah. There’s so much nothin’ going on here that the most interesting thing in the first half hour is that ’Skipper’ Alan Hale actually had a nice butt way back was when he was young. (Um, it’s not weird that I noticed that, is it? I mean, the whole movie is like watching paint dry, I had to notice something!) Not content with merely being dim and useless, the film graduates into abject offensiveness with its inclusion of Willie Best (Who had previously been known as “Sleep n’ Eat”. *Gags* ) as a stock human punching bag. While using African Americans as “comedy” relief was a widespread and shameful practice in the earlier part of the century, I’ve never seen a worse display of it then in this film. The garbage humor reaches a head in the scene where Hale talks with a creepy old white guy who collects shrunken heads. (Insert shot of some of the fakest tsansta in film history.) He mentions that he needs a “negroid” head to complete his collection. (Oy.) He then asks Hale what “tribe” his servant comes from. (Oy!) Hale responds “the boogie-woogie” tribe. (Oy! The bastards!) I’ve heard that the smiling ghost himself is actually creepy, but I can’t vouch for that myself. After that line, I deleted this film from my dvr queue, wishing to God that I had a “go to hell” button on my remote.

‘Whistling in the Dark’ (1941)

 The plot behind this one is kinda nice. Conrad Veidt plays the leader of a crooked cult, who must dispose of the do-gooder who tries to expose him. That would be Red Skelton, who plays Wally Benton, who in turn plays “The Fox”, a radio detective. (Sort of like The Shadow, except annoying as hell.) The opening scenes of cult ceremonies are genuinely creepy, and Conrad is in his usual fine form.

 The thing that kills this movie for me is its star. I don’t like Skelton, I never did. Seems like his entire career was built upon variations of the exact same character; the funny-sounding retard. (Take this as no slur, my own dear brother is autistic. Which is all the more reason I get as many chuckles out of Red as I did the Nuremberg trial.) His wisecracks are about as funny as a tumor, (Honest to Allah, a mummy=mommy pun? I think I heard Meatwad deliver the same joke once.) and his constant howling as The Fox made me want to drive sheet-metal screws into my tympanic membranes. The characters are extremely weak. Skelton is a dope (surprise!) and his two companions are just a couple of catty bitches. Together they do a series of astoundingly stupid things until Veidt finally finds time in his busy schedule to kill them all. (You’re in a secret passage, trying to escape a cult compound. Would you shut the hell up for five feckin minutes?! If not for your sake, for mine?) In the mean time, the constant barrage of unfunny gags stretch 20 minutes worth of story out to feature length. 

Like some mephitic shade of a Will Smith movie, many scenes just consist of Red being allowed to do his shtick; a truly grating experience.

To its credit, the film does a fair job of building tension during the finale. This is no easy feat, as by this time I was actively craving the death of Skeleton and his twits.

 I am perhaps being a bit facetious, the intimidating presence of Veidt is just ducky, and the old time radio theme adds an unexpected level of coolness.

5.0

‘Zombies on Broadway’ (1945)

Has there ever been a better title for a cult film ever? And has there ever been a film more undeserving? Well, not to say the film is awful, just entirely underwhelming. Alan Carney and Wally Brown were a pair of (deservedly) obscure vaudevillians. Due to the popularity of Abbot and Costello, they were given a film contract in an attempt to cash in on the public’s craving for odd, yelling men. I never really found A&C to be particularly funny, but they did have personality. Wally and Alan are no Abbot and Costello. Despite the broad nature of the comedy (lots of pratfalls) the humor here is entirely apocryphal. I really couldn’t tell you where the jokes were in this film any more than I could tell you if there really is a face on Mars. It depends on who’s looking I guess. Of course, there’s the typical stock racist humor present. (Goofy native rituals, “Sho’ nuff” style dialog, etc.) Who found this crap funny? The plot is, well let’s be generous and call it unusual. A pair of stupid and incompetent publicity managers pepper the city with flyers advertising the appearance of a genuine zombie at their client’s night club. (Are nightclubs considered Broadway? I think not!) Their client, a local mobster, doesn’t take to kindly to this, and orders them to obtain a sample of the living dead, lest they become just plain dead. They have no idea what a real zombie is, or where to get one. (Let this be a lesson to you kids, never promise zombies to the Mob without a detailed business plan.) A local professor (with an odd necrophilic crush on one of his mummies, but that’s irrelevant) steers them to the isle of San Sebastian, the only place on earth where zombies are know to exist. 

There they meet mad zombie-master Bela Lugosi, who gives a decent if not outstanding performance. Hey, whatever puts the goulash on the table. (…and morphine in the pantry.) Bela’s pet zombies are the film’s highlight. With their artificial, eternally staring bug eyes, they really are creepy as hell! If there’s a more disturbing example of pre-Romero cinematic zombies, I aint’ seen em! (And yes, I know this film was a bit of a takeoff of ‘I Walked with a Zombie', and features some of the same players. The difference is, here the creepy zombies aren’t buried under an hour’s worth of mind-numbing Jacques Tourneur melodrama, making them all the more effective.) Unfortunately, when Alan & Wally get in on the bug-eyed reanimit gag, it sort of ruins the effect. The film doesn’t look all that bad. (It’s not up to A&C level production values, but it doesn’t need to be.) There is some nice camera work on display here. But the film drags on quite a bit, and, unforgivably, we never do get to see a gaggle of zombies on Broadway. (I want undead Rockettes and I want them now!) On the bright side, we do get to watch Lugosi take part in a monkey knife fight!