User Reviews

I dragged my mother to the Cedar Movie Theater in Minneapolis to watch a triple feature horror show. There was a casket in front of the theatre. I wonder where they got that. The Attack of the Crab Monsters was one film; this one was the second; the third I can't remember. She slept through all three. I was only 10 at the time. We had seen the hype for this on TV. Lloyds of London, a million dollars, all you had to do was to die of fright. Anyway, what turned out to be a pretty average movie with the "buried alive" thing at the center wasn't nearly as interesting as those talking crustaceans. This is really a police mystery. It does have atmosphere. There is a lot of rain. Why do these graveyard things always have so much rain? It is suspenseful at times but terribly talky as well. At my age, seeing a corpse was pretty frightening. When I had a chance to see it again about thirty years later, it really seemed ordinary.

A doctor in a small town has done a good job of making himself hated because of his role in the deaths of two sisters. When his daughter disappears and a caller announces that she has been buried alive, will the unpopular doctor uncover the MACABRE scheme, or will the cute little girl die a horrible, frightening death?

Any movie that dares cast the lovable Jim "Mr. Magoo" Backus as the sort of brutish sheriff that Sterling Hayden could have done in his sleep does have something going for it. Any movie that features a slutty rich blind girl (who makes time with the pool boy AND Jim Backus AND our surly doctor hero) has a definite noir appeal. And the attention paid to clocks and the passing of time shows that the director at least has a concept of how a film might generate suspense.

But, a movie with the amount of bad, bad acting this one does, indicates a director perhaps more concerned with the promotion of his movie than the making of it. The logical flaws of the film are really extraordinary, beginning with small things, such as the distance between the small town and its old creepy graveyard, and advancing to the large, such as our hero's steadfast refusal to call the cops. And the final resolution, alas, is more disappointing than surprising. The best thing that can be said about the "promotional" aspects of the film -- mostly a rather campy opening announcement about how really truly scary all this is going to be, and a Charles Adams - like animated closing credit sequence, is that these campy things really don't get in the way.

Worth seeing, because the Jim Backus performance is the sort a revelation that can happen when a good character actor is totally cast against type. But the world won't come to an end if you miss this.

i remember "macabre" when the ads for the movies first appeared.one consisted of a sad looking man with a top hat driving a horse drawn hearse containing a flowered draped casket. under the title"macabre" was this line "see it with someone who can carry you home". I remember the front of the theater had a real casket on display. it was opened and it was a hideous looking corpse with the Lloyd's of London policy displayed on the inside of the lined lid of the casket. I wanted to go see it that weekend, but my mother said to me "do you want to die?"so I chickened out. I later heard from my school chums that the movie was a big disappointment and don't bother to see it. I finally got to see it during halloween of 1960 at the same theater where it first opened. there was no casket there to greet me.so i just had the movie to deal with. In watching it I was waiting for the shock moments to occur, but there were just not there, except during the scene in the casket room, and the one in the mausoleum and of course the grand finale with the graveside service at midnight and the discovery of the small casket with it's horrible contents that managed to issue a scream or two from the rather small audience. I still enjoyed the movie regardless of it's shortcomings and can hardly wait till it makes it on DVD.

I remember the hype surrounding this movie when we were kids. It was said that people were dying in movie theaters, it was so frightening. Little children would have heart attacks. Naturally, we all begged to go. We never let up and so our mothers eventually said yes. I saw it at the River Park Theater in South Bend, Indiana, on a Saturday afternoon. The place was packed with kids. Movies cost 35 cents in those days, and the parents didn't come in -- they just dropped you off and picked you up. I remember being thrilled with anticipation, then keeping my face in my hands for about half the movie. I've never forgotten Macabre. Now Matt Drudge says a lady died in the theater watching Mel Gibson's "Passion." As far as hype goes, we've heard this one before.

William Castle's first excursion into the horror genre is not really scary at all. It's a mild murder mystery about several dislikable characters, one of them presumably having committed a grizzly crime. It gets bogged down midway with some flashback sequences which really don't help the narrative THAT much. The performances are well acted and the film manages to keep a decent level of intrigue and curiosity throughout. It's also unusual to see Jim Backus in a rather unlikable role. However, being advertised as a "horror" film, it fails to provide enough ample shocks to please in that department and it lacks some of the chills and humorous touches of Castle's later work. Still, it's worth a look as the first of the William Castle "gimmick" films.

"Macabre" definitely wasn't the legendary director William Castle's most successful horror accomplishment, as this honor probably goes to either "House on Haunted Hill", "The Tingler" or "13 Ghosts". "Macabre" also wasn't Castle's coolest or most entertaining horror accomplishment, because according to yours truly that special title either goes to "Homicidal", "Mr. Sardonicus" or "Strait-Jacket". But one thing's for sure, namely that "Macabre" was Castle's very first horror flick AND the first time he tried out a nifty little gimmick, which would later become his trademark and his ultimate formula to fame & success. The gimmick here included that all spectators received a special type of insurance against "death by fright" and that a stern voice-over warns about the shocking impact of the film. It's all rather silly and cheesy by today's standards, but Castle's gimmicks quickly proved to be highly effective and he still remains one of the most imitated horror directors now, nearly forty years after his death. "Macabre" itself is extremely simplistic and low- budgeted, like all of William Castle's movies, but the plot is quite compelling and several sequences are drenched in an atmosphere that is … well … macabre! Small town doctor Rodney Barrett is confronted with the ultimate nightmare when he learns that his innocent 5-year- old daughter Marge has been kidnapped and lies buried alive somewhere with only five hours left to live. The doctor, along with his secretary and fragile old father-in-law, starts a frantic search for his little girl at the most obvious location – the local cemetery – but where to dig and who to trust? After all, the good doctor seemingly has quite a few enemies in town, including the rancorous Sheriff Tyloe, and (redundant) flashbacks show that he wasn't very kind to his deceased blind wife Alice. The race-against the clock aspect results in a handful of tense moments and most of all the scenes set at the fog-enshrouded graveyard at night are genuine horror highlights. The flashbacks and some of the plot- twists near the end are pretty dumb and merely raise the impression that William Castle only wanted to stretch the running time a bit, while other sequences (like for example the phone call from the kidnapper and nurse Polly's subsequent report to the doctor) are laughably inept. But who cares, as "Macabre" is a terrific piece of 50s horror and marked the start of the career of one of the most creative minds in cinema history.

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.

Odd and ordinary seems a contradiction but it could explain the feeling of this first William Castle "gimmick" movie.

It is odd in plot and that is mostly because it is somewhat confusing, but is also odd because the audience spends the whole film with the idea that a little girl has been buried alive and only has a few hours to live. That is truly almost subliminal horror.

The on screen shocks are few but effective and the atmosphere is low budget slick. The ordinary comes from the overall movie presentation of talky and uninteresting characters. It is historically a worthwhile effort just don't expect a horror movie and maybe it will play better.

More of a thriller, it does have an ending that is both bizarre and once it is over you will find yourself going back over the movie in your head to try and put it all together. It's hardly worth the effort, but if this little sleeper can have the audience playing mental gymnastics it could be called successful and it was and it sent Castle on a long and winding road of better and more entertaining movies that became pop culture legends and baby boomer terror teething's.

Folks in a small town think that a doctor (William Prince) is responsible for the death of his wife due to his incompetence. Someone is so mad about this that they apparently kidnapped the doctor's daughter and have buried her alive. The doc must scramble to figure this one out--and the leads point to her being buried in the cemetery.

In the late 1950s, director/producer William Castle began releasing horror thrillers with amazing gimmicks--such as electrifying seats and shocking viewers in "The Tingler" or sending skeletons flying over the audience in "The House on Haunted Hill". "Macabre" was the first of these--with insurance policies on the patrons because the film was supposedly THAT scary. Unfortunately, the film just wasn't scary! And, I really expected much more from this film. Plus, the ending was just confusing and rather anticlimactic. Not among Castle's better films.

I missed seeing Macabre back when I was a lad, but you would have to have been behind the Iron Curtain to miss all the hype and promotion that director William Castle used to promote this thing. At the age of 71 when I have more reason to be concerned with my cardiac functions I'm here to tell you I got not a flutter watching Macabre.

The small town doctor William Prince and the small town sheriff Jim Backus have little liking for each other, but when Prince's daughter is kidnapped and he's given 5 hours to find her because she's buried alive with only so much air.

After that the film gets weird and strange. If that's your taste go for it. When you add dull I don't think it's anybody's taste.

When I first saw this movie, I was around 9 or 10 years old. This is William Castle's first "official" horror movie. There are no monsters in it and no killers, at least no "graphic" killings, but for some reason, this has always been one of my favorite William Castle movies. I remember watching it real late at night. I think the intro and the end credits were somehow "scary" to me. At the end, as the credits are rolling, there is a cartoon of a "macabre" parade walking by. I still remember that to this day. One of the cartoon characters is carrying his own head. I'm 50 years old now and it's funny how a person can remember insignificant stuff like that over the years. I sure wish this movie would be released on DVD. I would love to see it in crystal clarity like the other William Castle movies that have been released on DVD.

For whatever reason, "B" movie film-maker (of mainly epic, Western and noir fare) Castle changed pace here with a horror outing, whose box-office performance encouraged him to largely stick to this genre thereafter – aided, to a considerable degree, by the showman-like gimmicks which accompanied most of them (in this case, it was insurance against death-by-fright)! Anyway, being the first of its kind, one can perhaps excuse its essential naivete': for one thing, it is not the least bit scary, though the plot of a race-against-time to literally unearth a missing child seemed intriguing enough…

The film – watched via a Czech TV screening sporting obtrusive subtitles in that language, not to mention an excessively hiss-laden soundtrack! – evokes the small-town atmosphere so redolent of its ilk, where skeletons in the closet abound (usually relating to an eminent family) and people bear a grudge (often of a romantic kind) which naturally spells disaster before long. So far, so good: only the narrative does not sufficiently engage the viewer – much less elicit sympathy for its myriad characters – throughout! Indeed, it is rendered even more awkward by being padded (despite being a mere 68 minutes in length!) with flashbacks that seem to make no real point other than to expose the sordid details of some of the main character's personal lives. Acting, too, leaves a lot to be desired – with perhaps the major culprits being the patriarch, always on the verge of expiring from a cardiac arrest, and the leading lady, who melodramatically faints while listening to a purportedly maniacal phone-call (only very briefly heard via a recording at the climax) and is then made to clumsily describe it to the hero! Indeed, the most notable – and effective – cast member is Jim Backus, who gets to physically assault the male protagonist following the death at childbirth of the latter's wife (a doctor, he had preferred spending time with his girlfriend rather than see to his marital and professional duties!) and the former's own ex-flame.

In the end, the movie deserves its pride of place as a trend-setter (the villain's identity, at least, proves audacious if hardly sensible), which the director invariably improved upon in subsequent forays down the path of ghoulish chills – a number of which I will be checking out presently on the occasion of his centenary

Learning of a great treachery against his daughter, a man and his wife race to the graveyard containing her before a deranged madman can win out in his quest for revenge.

An exceptionally flawed and not really all that worthwhile William Castle gimmick effort, only this time the gimmick isn't that great and the movie's little better. The central premise to this one is quite chilling, with the abduction of the daughter and being buried in a grave that requires a man and wife to find her, means we get some incredibly wonderful Gothic atmosphere with the scenes in the cemetery that are quite creepy in design and chilling in how the story's built up. These scenes here and their bantering about where she is and where to dig are really the only parts of this that's worthwhile, as the rest of the time it doesn't have a whole lot to really get interested in. As it goes around with all the potential suspects and why they're interested in seeking revenge, the flashback nature of these participants and why they're out for revenge is not in the slightest bit interesting and drags the movie to a halt as it goes about this section of the movie, dropping all potential horror angles and does so for the majority of the film's running time. Even more so, the fact that the central premise doesn't allow for a lot of time dealing with the graveyard search forces this upon the viewer, a rather unfortunate handicap right off the top. It's got its moments, but not a whole lot of them.

Today's Rating: Unrated/PG: Mild Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

What set this film apart from all others playing at the time, was an insurance policy, issued by Lloyds Of London, given out at the box office, and insuring the patron against "death by fright" during the viewing. Of course, I doubt that anyone's relatives managed to collect the one million dollar face value, but it certainly managed to lure in a packed house.

One scene ,in particular, caused a few hesitations in my cardiac functions, despite the films generally boring overtones. One of the many false leads in the search for the missing child, led to a graveyard. An interrment was taking place during a dismal rainstorm,and the child supposedly was buried in the open grave. The camera was positioned up in the trees, as the would be rescuers dug frantically at the grave, rapidly filling with rainwater. As the coffin was unearthed and opened, the camera zoomed in for a closeup of the morbid contents, prompting ear splitting screams from the audience,and raising me out of my seat. Although only a partially melted wax doll, it did resemble a decomposing corpse.

This excellent use of the element of surprise and shock, made this ordinary film, memorable.

William Castle, the Sultan of Schlock, proudly presents a movie so horrifying that you might want to take out life insurance before watching! The young daughter of a man with enemies disappears and a mysterious caller reveals that the girl is buried alive with only enough air for five hours. The frantic search begins, the clock on the funeral parlour marks the passing time, and everyone is a suspect. I lived through the movie but, as requested by Castle himself (in a brief voiceover epilogue), won't reveal the ending. If you don't think about it too hard the plot is interesting (although the climatic revelation generates as many questions as it answers), there are some effective scenes as people desperately search for the girl in the creepy local cemetery, and some of the characters quite intriguing (notably, the fast-living blind girl). Stick around for the amusing credit sequence (including typos).

It is one of the quirks of movie history that the main reason this pot-boiler of a mystery is remembered is because it was the first of producer/director William Castle's gimmick scare films. The gimmick?--A $1,000.00 life insurance policy issued by Lloyd's of London given to each lucky theater patron to insure them against death by fright. A safe bet, since the movie delivers only one brief shock moment in its 70-odd minute running time. The gimmick, aided by the movie's rivetingly eerie advertising poster (featuring a hooded grinning skull and the faces of three screaming gals) helped bring in droves of customers to theater box-offices all across 1958 America.

Based on a round-robin mystery, "The Marble Forest", written by members of the Mystery Writers of America, "Macabre" presents the dilemma of a small-town doctor whose three-year-old daughter goes missing, presumably kidnapped, and is possibly buried alive! Other characters include the doctor's office nurse, the unsavory sheriff, the attractive other woman, the creepy housekeeper, the creepy undertaker, the creepy but expendable cemetery-keeper, and the aging millionaire with a cardiac condition. There are flashbacks, hysterical outbursts, melodramatic utterances, frantic diggings in a very dark and overgrown cemetery, and anyone could be a suspect. That being said, it also follows that nobody in the movie is a very sympathetic character, and the movie doesn't show off director Castle's talents as a scare-meister to great advantage.

Still, it's worth a watch, to see what all the brouhaha was about. After all, it was made quickly and cheaply, and made back something like $5 million in box-office revenue. The DVD has just been made available by Warner Bros. on-demand, so why wait?

So far, this is the best Castle film that I have seen; I personally think it is quite a bit better, more believable, and way more involving then any of his other films (well, the one with Joan Crawford was pretty dang good!)

Also, without giving too much away, the ending caught me completely off guard too. The DVD print is frigg'n AMAZING! I thought it was a Blu-ray it looked so sharp and detailed. At first, the dialog seemed a little clumpy and stiff, but as you get into the story and begin to understand the relationships and history between the characters, it starts to smooth out a little.

Another thing that surprised me was the 'adult' nature of some of the story content. Not anything visual; nothing like that, but some of the situations that the characters got into were rather sordid and seedy for 1958 I would think! Probably the weakest point of the film is the acting and to a lesser degree the script; again a bit stiff. But, interestingly as you get more and more into the story and the search for the little girl, you DO indeed get drawn into and become more involved in what is going on.

This movie is of course not of the FILM NOIR genre, which ended just about the time this movie came out. But, the dark edge that many of the characters have and some of the shadowy photography reminded me somewhat of the genre. Primarily the flashback sequences and the morally dubious tone of a lot of the people. There are some similarities to films in the latter NOIR period.

Anyway, not that I am really an expert on William Castle or anything, but so far amongst his films that I have seen, I feel that this one is far and away the more serious and classier of them. I know that many feel that 'THE TINGLER' and 'HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL' are Classics, but personally I found the acting and dialog in them quite sub-par compared to this one...

So, if you are in the mood for an older Suspense / Mystery Thriller with a dark NOIR edge and can put up with a little stiff acting (and NO, I do not mean this is a porn film...) and if you would like to see what a Castle film is like BEFORE he started introducing all the heavy CHEEEEEEEZ, then you should find it quite entertaining...

Dr .Rodney Barrett (William Prince) is a small town doctor. Nobody likes him because they blame him in the deaths of two sisters. He also has an adorable little girl of his own. One day he returns home to find his child is missing. then his friend gets a phone call telling her that the child has been kidnapped and buried alive. The doctor has four hours to find her before she dies.

Ideal set-up for a great horror film fails. The acting is terrible, the pace lethargic and the countless flashbacks add nothing to the story. I had figured out halfway through who had done it but didn't know the reason why. This was in the famous movie where viewers were given an insurance policy assuring them that their relatives would receive money if they died of fright. The only thing that anyone would die from would be boredom! Skip it.

I finally saw this on TV several years ago and wish I had taped it. It's got strong story elements that could have been developed into something really great.

The idea of a funeral to be held at night because the deceased, the daughter of a very wealthy man, had been blind sets the tone. Add a race against time to save a kidnapping victim who's been buried alive and you've got the elements of a tidy thriller.

My understanding is that the novel this was based on, THE CONCRETE GARDEN if I remember the title correctly, was actually written by several mystery writers. It was a project where writer A came up with the concept and wrote opening, then passed it to writer B who developed it and threw in complications that would make writer C sweat bullets to resolve. The fact that there were so many writers involved seems to have made it very difficult to get the rights to the story, and that's why it's the only one of William Castle's thrillers not available on video.

We've seen remakes of several of Castle's works. Maybe someone will discover this one and get the rights issue resolved.

"Macabre" is the first entry in William Castle's cycle of horror films and it isn't bad; it's better than "13 Ghosts" but not as good as "I Saw What You Did" and nowhere near as intense as "The Tingler." A lot of the right elements are in place for a good thrill; the photography is excellent, there is plenty of claustrophobic atmosphere and the first two thirds of it is completely credible, though as a kind of detective picture rather than horror. One has to accept the fact that Dr. Barrett is a lousy detective, and that even though there is the frantic search for the missing girl, with the clock ticking, it has to be set aside periodically to allow for other plot points to go by; maddening. But ultimately Castle takes the easy way out when just a little more effort would have made "Macabre" a great film. And judging from some of his other work, Castle had it in him, it's just that at a certain point the film begins to undermine its own potential with ludicrousness. Christine White is marvelously sexy as a blind girl with a taste for adventure, and it's fun to see Jim Backus in a role as a heavy, speaking in his natural voice. Ellen Corby is stronger than the part that she is given, which could have been more consequential if she hadn't been awarded such a limited and repetitive repertoire of lines to say. "Macabre" isn't successful at all at passing the blame for its caper on individuals not involved in the situation, and that's fine; the confusion about where the girl is, who might have taken her, and why is enough to instill a kind of unsettled confusion that sets the right mood. It's definitely worthwhile as a kind of period piece as it works towards its Cold War-ish conclusion, but one wonders how well it would play if Ingmar Bergman had taken a look at the script, and it wouldn't have taken a lot to bring it up to that level; "Macabre" just falls short.

What a waste of time! Pure rubbish. Skip thus pablum.