A COMEDY OF TERRORS

US, 1963, 84 minutes, Colour.
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Joe E.Brown.
Directed by Jacques Tourneur.

A horror spoof written by Richard Mathieson, author of the Poe adaptations for Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, regulars of the same Corman series, rhe film uses the conventions of the serious horror films and puts them to humour and mocking satire. Vincent Price satirises his own horror film persona. The film is a mixture of the corny and the slapstick as well as the poking fun at the horror conventions that audiences enjoy so much.

1. The expectations from a horror film? Shocks, scares, blood and gore, death? Vincent Price horror films?

2. The success of the film as a satire, spoof? How funny was it in itself? In presenting the expected conventions and making mock of them?

3. The stars and their reputations as serious actors, their work in horror films? Seeing them sending themselves up and the effect of this for appreciating the film and its themes?

4. The solemn tones of the opening with the burial and its turning to farce with the undertakers recovering their coffin? The use of the speed-up technique? The introduction to the undertakers' world? Money, the rent, the premises, the making of the coffins inefficiently, Gilly and his work downstairs, the clashes with Mr. Turnbull? The need to go out and kill people? The various deaths? The confrontation with Mr. Jack about the rent, the plan to kill him and its continued lack of success?

5. Vincent Price as Mr. Turnbull? His manner, presence,. style of speaking? Larger than life presentation? Asn the drinking idle venal undertaker? The reason for his marrying Amaryllis? Her money, the business, her father? Their continued clash, his ridicule of the father? His decision about the murders and his execution of them, his pressing of Gilly? Hid conduct with the widow before the funeral and his being outwitted by her? His manner at the funerals? The decision to kill Mr. Black and the various attempts? The final fight with him and the ironic deaths and non-deaths? His being deceived and being accidentally put to death by his father-in-law? The point about this kind of comic horror character?

6. Gilly and Peter Lorre's style? Comedy, criminal background, inefficiency in making coffins, his fear of Turnbull and mispronouncing his name? The humorous romanticism of his devotion to Amaryllis? His participation in the murders and his fear? his dancing with Amaryllis? His seeming to die and yet the happy ending for himself and his sweetheart?

7. Amaryllis as the would-be opera singer and her singing, the breaking of the glasses etc., her being scorned by her husband, her devotion to her father, the infatuation with Gilly, the playing of the organ at the funeral services? Her seeming death but a happy ending? The mock heroic heroine?

8. Boris Karloff and his style, the doting father-in-law, his being mocked, his slovenliness at the table, the comedy with the poison, his sermon at the funeral, his administering the poison at the end?

9. The comedy with Basil Rathbone as Mr. Black? His tyranny about the rent? Gilly's confrontation with him, the attempts to kill him, the servant's information about the catatonic states? His continued coming to life, his being in the coffin? His final death with the long speech from Macbeth? The final say to Mr. Black?

10. The humorous detail of the midnight murders? The widow and her coping with the situation? The farcical aspects of the killing of Mr. Black and his funeral?

11. The impact of comedy expectations upsetting the horror styles? The verbal humour? The Shakespearian play on the title and Shakespeare's Macbeth?

12. An entertaining comedy, the expectations of the spoof, points made about horror films?