Was this supposed to be funny? Because it wasn't. Was it supposed to be frightening? It wasn't. This is so feeble I would have bet money it was made for TV. Something that might come on at 10 p.m. on Halloween 1963 after Branded or Death Valley Days or Gunsmoke. William Castle has gotta rank right up there with Ed Wood as worst director of all time. What a hack.

One would expect a collaboration between the American director William Castle and the British production studios Hammer to result in a terrific must-see film, considering they were both horror genre giants in their respective continents during the early sixties. Castle became world famous and appreciated thanks to his morbidly themed but nevertheless light-headed Gothic horror spectacles ("House on Haunted Hill", "Mr. Sardonicus", "13 Ghosts"…), and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Hammer studios boomed with the gruesome re-imaging of the legendary Universal classics from the thirties ("Dracula", "The Mummy", "Frankenstein"…). Knowing this, "The Old Dark House" seems to be the ideal marriage, since it's more or less a remake of the underrated 1932 Universal masterpiece and a great opportunity for a director like Castle to showcase his creativity. Strangely enough, however, the film is somewhat of a disappointment and it's only rescued from inglorious mediocrity thanks to a handful of nice gags and an entertaining final act; including a surprising plot-twist and an exciting race against the clock – literally! The rest of the film clumsily bounces back and forth between talkative mystery and immature comedy. Please don't get me wrong, "The Old Dark House" is never boring and I still prefer it over most of the soulless horror junk being released nowadays, but I simply expected a little bit more… American car salesman Tom Penderel drives out to the god-forsaken British countryside in order to deliver a car at the request of his odd pal Caspar Femm. The two share an apartment, but they never see each other since Caspar always mysteriously vanishes before midnight. When he arrives at the sinister Femm country estate, he learns that all the eccentric family members are obliged to stay at the house and gather at midnight, or otherwise they lose the rights to their part of the inheritance of their notorious ancestor (a pirate). Synchronous with Tom's arrival, the family members are being killed off one by one. Tom should leave while, but he fell for the charming cousin Cecily and the remaining Femms suspect him to be the killer. "The Old Dark House" begins delightfully, with animated opening credits by none other than Charles Addams – the creator of the immortal blackly comical series "The Addams Family – and brings forward several great Gothic aspects, like a moody old castle and never-ending thunderstorms. Some of the supportive characters are also uniquely bizarre, like the crazy uncle who's building an arc or the grandmother that doesn't stop knitting, but overall the film isn't absurd or spooky enough. The actual "horror" footage in the film is limited, a few inventive death scenes and a laughably inept moment with a stuffed hyena.

Tom Poston was one of my favorite character actors on quite a few television shows, and I remember him fondly from another film of his -- "Zotz". But frankly, this film demonstrates why he never became a significant film actor. This film is just 86 minutes of silliness...and that's not a compliment. I can't even figure out what audience it was aimed at. Too juvenile for adults, and too adultish (in places) for kids.The cast is somewhat appealing. It's difficult not to like Tom Poston (here as an American in England), but I'm not sure he has enough depth to carry a film. Robert Morley is around as one of the odd Brits, but I grew tired of him very, very long ago. Well, that's about it in terms of names Americans will recognize, although several of the other actors did nicely enough.The plot is pretty thin. Relatives in a seemingly haunted house are being murdered one by one. Who is the murderer? Mostly there's just a lot of silliness, some of which should have been cut all together, or at least condensed. And even then, 86 minutes was too long.I adored Tom Poston, but not in this lemon.

Campy comedy about an expatriate American who sells cars in England and gets invited by an eccentric millionaire to visit the man's ancestral estate. The ancestral mansion turns out to be something right out of a Charles Addams' cartoon (Addams in fact drew the opening sequence) and it is chock full of oddball relatives. One by one, during a torrential storm, they are knocked off by unseen hands. I'd not seen this film before, but it was easy enough to spot the killer. Tom Poston plays the befuddled American, and Robert Morley plays a gun-toting member of the nutty clan. Plenty of slapstick bits but no scares, as one might have expected from the title. Director William Castle helmed this remake of a 1937 classic, and has a lot of fun with it. Great musical score, and some fetching females to keep up the interest. Excellent sets and color. Worth a look.