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!

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.

If you watch the opening title sequence you can easily understand the problem with the rest of the movie : A transvestite falls dying against a window consciously telling the audience " It's not what you think , it's not what you think " . Seconds later something stirs in the bushes back to camera , the figure turns and we see it is a werewolf - then the action cuts to a radio studio ! And that sums up the movie . Camp transvestites are not laugh inducing while sequences that reveal the previous action was part of radio play is akin to someone waking up and discovering it was a bad dream . Bad dream sequence = bad movie I know that fusing comedy with horror is never easy but when you've got some talented people behind and in front of the camera you should demand more . Gene Wilder directs and he worked on YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN . Trying to tell me he forgot everything he knew from that classic comedy horror ? I also couldn't noticing that most of the cast are British . You'll recognise most of their faces if not their names and you can't help but notice their absolutely atrocious American accents ! I really do hate it when American actors try ( And fail ) to do British accents and we've got a trans Atalantic role reversal here . Trying to tell me Jonathan Pryce couldn't have done better ? I won't waste any more words on this movie except to reiterate that it's a lazily written , badly acted and hugely disappointing film