a feature-length, stop-motion animated Halloween musical from Rankin/Bass, the studio which produced most of the animated Christmas classics (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, etc.), as well as The Hobbit (1977) the film features Boris Karloff as the voice of Baron Boris von Frankenstein and Allen Swift as virtually every other character. some character designs and voices are better than others, my favourites being Dracula, Mummy and Jekyll & Hyde. the set pieces are creative and detailed i don't particularly care for the song-and-dance numbers, although the tap-dancing Dracula is amusing, but the jazzy, brass-driven score by Maury Laws in itself makes this a film worth watching. the story is interesting but ends rather abruptly, and the final product could probably have been cut down to about an hour without sacrificing anything crucial imagine Bobby Pickett's Halloween novelty Monster Mash album transmuted into cinema, and you'll have a pretty decent idea of what to expect

Mad Monster Party? (1967)** 1/2 (out of 4)Animated film has Dr. Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) inviting all sorts of monsters to his house as well as his young nephew. What people don't know is that the doctor plans on retiring and wants his rather dorky nephew to take over for him. This animated feature is certainly a favorite to many who grew up with it and I understand what they'd enjoy. I'm sure being a kid who loved monsters this here would be terrific because there are simply so many on hand. The problem I've always had with this film is that I think it would have been better served as a television special that way it wouldn't come with a 96-minute running time, which in my opinion is just way too long and it really sucks the story dry. I say this because the idea of a monster (Dracula) revolting against Dr. Frankenstein isn't exactly the greatest story idea ever made and this is clear because the film just starts to run out of gas because it doesn't have anything there to work with. The film is certainly creative and it appears that the filmmakers were fans of the genre. I think the best character is a clear homage to Peter Lorre and I thought this one was delightful whenever he was on the screen. The Frankenstein doctor is also memorable thanks in large part to the vocal performance by Boris Karloff. The monsters are another major plus as we've got all the big guys here including Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein's monster, the hunchback, the creature, Jekyll and Hyde and countless others. I really thought all the monsters looked fantastic and there's no question that their look will put a smile on the face of monster fans.

you did. you did sell your soul to the devil. you watched "monster party' last night and sold your soul to nerdy, baby boomer, nostalgic obscura.not that 'Monster Party' deserves to be as obscure as it's become. mostly from those critics who are cynical about anything that isn't hyped or accepted by mainstream thinking. this film still has no real reputation to speak of. and that's an unfair oversight. after all this was Boris Karloff's last movie. it's worth remembering for that alone. it also pre-dated contemporary stop-motion puppet toons like 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Fantastic Mr.Fox'. 'MMP' may not be as sophisticated or as accomplished as 'Nightmare' or 'Fox', but it's stop motion still holds up surprisingly well and it sports an hilarious script with some witty dialogue and a killer ending in the boat with Felix and Francessca.the songs aren't half bad either. especially the title song "mad monster party last night". some of these songs will be instantly recognizable to baby boomer ears. baby boomer hit favs like the raucous "do the mummy",and every boomer's favorite mantra, "you gotta stay one step ahead",where Boris Karloff does a soft shoe dance with some baby monsters.this movie always takes me back in a good way. it's as much fun and amusing as it was over forty years ago.

In theory, MAD MONSTER PARTY has everything required to blast you into your childhood past: the voices of Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller; characters that are riffs on Universal horror classics; and animated by Rankin-Bass, which created such memorable holiday television specials as Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. But at ninety minutes, MAD MONSTER PARTY is much, much too long for the very slight story it has to tell.The story, as such: Dr. Frankenstein, who earlier discovered the secret of life, has now discovered the secret of destruction. He invites all the monsters under his control to his remote island, there to announce his discovery--and his retirement and plans to pass his secrets onto his klutzy and inept nephew. The monsters are not pleased and decide to off said nephew and use the new discovery to suit themselves.The premise is okay, but the actual result is remarkably tedious. The script is dull, the occasional song atrocious. The pace is very, very slow. The character designs are uninspired. As for the famed Rankin-Bass animation... let us be generous here and say that in this instance it has not dated very well. This is essentially stop-motion animation, the same process so memorably used by Ray Harryhouser in such memorable films as THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and Tim Burton in THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE Christmas--but without the same budgets.If you are considering a purchase for "family film purposes," you can do a lot better than this. If you yourself recall the movie fondly from your childhood, do yourself a favor and don't return to it, for you will almost certainly be disappointed; some nostalgia really is better left in the past. The only people likely to find the film of interest are hardcore collectors of stop-motion animation--and even then the interest is more likely to be technical than anything else. Such fans excepted, not recommended.GFT, Amazon Reviewer