I caught this randomly of TCM. I was thinking of turning off the television set when suddenly I saw William Castle's name and got intrigued. I have previously seen 'The House on Haunted Hill' and I think it's a pretty great, genuinely CLASSIC horror film, and overall I have found Castle's career to be extremely compelling and kind of funny in a way. Castle was a filmmaker who grew to be iconic largely b/c of his gimmicks, which perfectly encapsulate the atmosphere of horror cinema at this time in filmmaking history ("this time" referring to the 1950's to the mid-1960's), and I was totally hooked on watching this film once it began, w/a shot of a large clock on a clock tower as a narration informs the viewer that over the course of the next hour and fifteen minutes prepare to be horrified or something along those lines, and amusingly suggesting that I, the viewer, calm whoever I am sitting beside in the theater if they get too visibly scared and that, and I just found this hilarious and felt like I was in for a comedic (if only ironically so) treat. Well, what I got was something quite unexpected and different than what my mind had planned. There were quite a few unintentionally amusing moments here and there, but the overall film was super dark. Like, it tackled some extremely disturbing topics in a really weird and eerie (if oft cheesy) way. I don't exactly know how I feel about this film, beyond knowing that I liked it, despite there being various extreme plot holes and the overall fact of its ending (which that same narrator from the beginning urges his audience to not spoil any of there friends, and to tell said friends to go see the picture for themselves, which I also found pretty funny) being less-than-satisfactory if (at least sort/kind of) unique/interesting/unexpected/fittingly-melancholic-in-a-way. Sometimes, watching films at total random can be a real experience, and this certainly was one. Full of surprises, unintentional laughs, genuine moments of shock and near actual fright...it's a time to be had for sure.
Review of Macabre
