Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

qmtv Karloff rules, the story needs lots of help.Karloff was great in this movie. He's better here then in some of the other pile of crap movies he was in prior to this. The other actors are only decent. The actress playing the wife was also good. The male lead sucks. He just does nothing. The female lead was better but that's not saying much. The guy who played the butler dies, maybe of boredom, like some of the audience. He did OK in the dying role. Some of the townspeople were also OK. So, wait for Karloff, and unfortunately he's not given great dialogue or enough screen time. The cinematography was good, as well as the sets. Music was good too. FX sucked. The story sucks. It stars similar to Harker heading to the Dracula's castle. Beginning is handled well, with mystery of the family. Then we meet the family, like the Munsters, there's a beautiful normal daughter in a house with strange characters. She acts like everything is normal. So, the story goes down hill from here. After some time of boredom we find out that people and plants are being mutated from some meteor, and then everybody dies, places goes on fire and the young couple escape. Happy ending. This movie first needed a better story. The basics are there, but the scenes/actions/tensions are not there. It also needed a better male lead. The daughter was fine. And it needed more Karloff. So, as is. I can only give this C-, or 3 stars

GL84 Arriving in England for a family get-together, a young couple find themselves in a strange occurrence when one of the relatives appears to be afflicted with a strange virus and must find a way of stopping them from contaminating others.This was a lot better than it should've been. One of the film's strengths is that the Gothic undertones in this one is apparent right from the start, and they manage to get a lot right with this elaborate setup. They all resonate, with the twisted landscapes, the deformed family members, the clean-cut hero coming to rescue the girl, the black magic and arcane secrets in the family past and the murky goings-on in the present being covered up by the distant and cold family patriarch. and do a fantastic job in getting the most out of the fewest possible elements. It also succeeds in building some reasonable atmosphere out of cliché elements, such as the hostile villagers, the fog- enshrouded landscape, a big brooding Victorian mansion, unearthly screams in the night and a mysterious hooded figure that are well played-out and strike as genuinely frightening. It also features some moments of genuine shock, such as the revelation of the mutated hand and face as it reaches out from behind the curtain and the journey into the greenhouse which is filled with tension and dread as the preceding events built up around it are quite unnerving. The sights inside it are no less impacting, including the briefly glimpsed vista of mutated alien creatures lined up in a cage in the back or the humongous plants and vegetables inside it, and the vine-ensnaring sequence still has a nice touch to it. The film really hits it's stride in the ending, which is full of action and shocks that it really ends on a great flourish from the battle with the radioactive creature which is well-staged and brings out some solid brawling and weapon-wielding which doesn't seem all that boring, to the climactic house burning down and the race to get out before it consumes the survivors, it's a grant ending and really stands out. This wasn't all that bad of a film, though for being as good as it was, there's still some problems with this one. The main issue is that this all feels very repetitive as it never once has a feeling of the Lovecraft inspiration, but it feels more like the earlier Poe films in tone, appearance and staging. It's not accidental, but it really hampers the flow when it's not that hard to predict how it will end up when you can guess that based only on how the movie looks. The film also could've had a better pace in the middle section, as it's constantly filled with dire warnings of what could happen, but the section is based around the threat of something and nothing transpires of them. When it gets back into the detective work of the story does it get better, but the constant warnings of bad things to happen despite the continuing recurrence of them and then not following up on them does get a little tiring. Despite these two problems, though, this wasn't all that bad.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

poe-48833 THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE is one of my favorite stories by H.P. Lovecraft, so it's hard to be objective about DIE, MONSTER, DIE! There are stories that just don't translate well to the Big Screen. Edgar Allen Poe's classic THE OBLONG BOX is a perfect example- and the number of times that filmmakers have cashed in on the reputations of writers like Poe and Lovecraft (not to mention ripping off writers like Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison) are Legion. Still, DIE, MONSTER, DIE! isn't a BAD movie: it's entertaining, and Nick Adams does a credible job as a man caught up in a Strange situation (his reactions to what takes place are believable for the most part), but Lovecraft it ain't. (The closest thing I've seen to a faithful attempt at bringing the Lovecraft sensibility to the Big Screen would probably have to be John Carpenter's IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, although it's not, strictly speaking, Lovecraft.) Until Carpenter comes out of retirement and does his version of THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH, we'll just have to settle for what we can get.

one-nine-eighty This film was originally called "Die, Monster, Die!" But later changed to "Monster of Terror", in truth both titles don't really do the film justice, maybe something like "Meteorite of Mutation" would have been more accurate. What you have here is an American International Pictures film directed by Daniel Haller and based on a story from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space". The big draw to this film is the presence of Boris Karloff, Nick Adams, Freda Jackson and Suzan Farmer - although the keen eyed watchers will notice Patrick Magee too. Stephen Reinhart (Adams), an American science graduate with an attitude (you'll notice why comparisons where drawn to James Dean, not just in appearing with Dean in "Rebel without a cause" but also his on-screen broody, moody presence) visits the small village of Arkham (a fictional place created by Lovecraft, not to be confused with the Arkham of the Batman universe) in England to see his fiancé. Upon arriving in the village the locals are rude and unhelpful upon learning that he is due to visit the Witley estate. Nobody wants to help him or point him in the direction of the estate, he even gets rejected at the bicycle hire shop, he ends up walking there himself. He is greeted by Nahum Witley (Karloff), his fiancé Susan's (Farmer) father, who is a wheelchair bound former scientist. Nahum tries to warn Reinhart away before he sees Susan but it doesn't happen, Susan has asked for help with her mother (Jackson) who is bedridden and undergoing a hideous change which makes her sensitive to light and seems to be decaying her body slowly. Letitia, Susan's mother, also tries warning Reinhart, asking him to take Susan far away from the estate. Reinhart does try to leave but Susan doesn't want to and rebuffs his attempts. Strange things start to happen, notably Merwyn (Terence De Marny) the butler dies. Reinhart begins exploring and asking questions, before too long he starts suspecting Mr Witley is the cause of the problems, this comes to a head when Reinhart and Susan break into the greenhouse and find a mysterious green glowing rock which seems to be helping plants and vegetation grow to gigantic proportions, not to mention the fact that alien lifeforms seem to be living in the greenhouse too. Initially the assumption through the film is that Witley had been dabbling with evil and the black arts however the truth is much more simple; some years ago a meteorite crashed near the estate and Witley had been harvesting the radioactive properties of the space rock. Witley was under the impression the rock was sent from heaven from one of his ancestors and the problems occurring are an ancestral curse, instead his old scientific mind doesn't see the truth. Can Reinhart save Susan and himself before it's too late or will Witley's insanity prevail and allow radiation to eat everybody up? This is a great looking film considering it was made in 1965. Despite it looking like a widescreen film it wasn't shot like this, post production magic makes it look better than it actually is. Colour is vivid throughout it's only let down by some of the special effects in the later parts of the film but I can forgive these blemishes on the film as it's older than I am and CGI wasn't possible back then. There is a constant mist or miasma surrounding the location which adds to the Gothic feel of this picture. The acting is great, Karloff and Adams both deliver believable and dark performances while Susan is a ditsy damsel who needs saving from herself as much as anybody else. Patrick McGee's appearance seems to be a typically pointless appearance much like his appearances in other films. The story is a little confusing to some people I know who have watched this but it's not that difficult if you persevere with it, it's just a little odd in it's own Gothic horror way. I think the first half of the film is more mysterious and suspense filled which conflicts with the last half as this is more of a creature feature horror film. All in all this is an enjoyable if slightly nostalgic film which while outdated by today's standard is a fun 80 minutes for horror fans. I'm awarding this 6 out of 10.