Intro: If you can’t get enough of Karloff, this is a serviceable vehicle for his talents. Lovecraft doesn’t fare nearly as well. Radiation madness ensues.
Tagline: “Can you face the ULTIMATE in DIABOLISM!…can you face PURE TERROR?”
AKA: Monster of Terror (U.K.)
WTF Factor: *** an extra star for the Silver Surfer and the liberal reworking of Lovecraft
Notable Comment: Susan: “Something dreadful’s going to happen, I know it!”
Synopsis: American Stephen Reinhart (Nick Adams) arrives in the English village of Arkham, but no one will direct him to the Witley house. He hikes through a desolate area past a crater and sneaks around the locked gate to the house. He is watched by a veiled figure and gets no answer at the door. Letting himself in, Steve meets wheelchair-bound Nahum Witley (Boris Karloff!!!), and tells him he came to see his daughter Susan, who he met at university. Nahum orders him to leave but Steve replies that Susan’s mother Letitia invited him.
Susan (Suzan Farmer) takes Steve to meet her mother Letitia (Freda Jackson), who is unwell and hiding behind a bed curtain while they talk. Talking to Steve alone, Letitia asks about her maid Helga, who was ill and then disappeared. She implores Steve to take Susan away from there.
Meanwhile, we see that Nahum has a basement retreat with a glowing, humming pit. His servant Merwin (Terence De Marney) isn’t too healthy either.
Nahum spies on Steve and Susan kissing and then goes to see Letitia. She accuses Nahum of resembling his mad father, Corbin the sorcerer. Nahum is not pleased
Letitia: “I wonder if you realize how like Corbin you’ve become.
Nahum: “There’s no similarity whatsoever. I’ve uttered no incantations. Neither have I cried out to any of the other so-called creatures of evil.”
Letitia: “It’s only your methods that differ.”
Letitia believes that Corbin called the evil spirits that now affect their home.
Nahum: “The villagers have no use for us, Mr. Reinhart. I might add, the feeling is mutual.”
During the worst dinner party ever, weird cries are heard. Nahum claims the blasted heath was consumed by fire, and he doesn’t want Susan to go there because villagers have disappeared in the area. Merwyn collapses during dinner, but Nahum shoos Susan and Steve away.
Later, Susan hears more weird cries and sees a figure at the window.
Steve doesn’t believe her, of course, even though he heard a noise at the window shortly before. Steve wants to leave the house immediately but Susan doesn’t want to desert her mother. Letitia won’t eat and she is hearing voices.
There are more weird cries, so Susan and Steve investigate the house. They encounter an angry Nahum, who informs them that Merwyn is dead. Later, Steve sneaks back to Merwin’s room and sees Nahum pushing the wheelchair out of the house with a box in it. He finds Merwin’s room all torn up, with an ash outline of a skeleton on the floor of the room. He then observes Nahum digging a secret grave outside.
Steve hears cries coming from the greenhouse, which is glowing. Nahum chases Steve to his room and apparently contemplates bashing his head in. However, he doesn’t.
The next day in the foggy woods, Steve hears those weird cries and then the veiled figure attacks Steve with a knife. It’s apparently Helga, but her face is deformed.
Steve visits the alcoholic village doctor (it’s Patrick Magee!) who treated Nahum’s father, Corbin, but the doctor won’t tell him anything about what’s going on. His receptionist confides to Steve that Corbin died in the doctor’s arms and no one else ever saw the body.
Letitia has locked herself in her room, which has been trashed. Neither Susan or Nahum can get an answer to their entreaties to let them in.
Susan and Steve sneak into the locked greenhouse and they find it full of mutant plants, with huge flowers and fruits.
Meanwhile, they hear those weird cries again. The potting shed contains a cage full of mutant animals; there is a green rock beside the cage. Steve thinks the animals have been exposed to radiation.
Steve: “It looks like a zoo in Hell!”
He finds pieces of green glass, giving off heat, in each of the flower pots. Plants grab Susan but Steve saves her. Meanwhile Letitia is still hiding in her room and will not open the door for Nahum.
Steve goes to the cellar, which is full of jump scare bats and a skeleton, and sees the glowing pit along with the cabalistic art. Nahum comes in and Steve tells him to get rid of the radioactive stone.
Letitia breaks out of her room, berserk, during a thunderstorm. She attacks the family, but is driven back. She falls, sobbing, and then her deformed face dissolves into bloody goo.
Nahum begs Steve and Susan to leave and tells Steve that the stone is a meteorite, that he believes was sent from Corbin. Nahum originally thought the stone was a boon, but now believes it is a curse.
Susan refuses to leave the house without Nahum. Nahum goes after the stone with an axe, then Helga attacks him. She grabs the axe and sloooooowly chases Nahum around the pit. Helga somehow manages to fall into the stone, which releases gas, turning Nahum into a glowing monster who leaves similarly glowing handprints all over the walls, including overhead [??].
Nahum attacks Susan and then Steve, falls over a banister, and incinerates as Susan and Steve flee the holocaust.
Susan: “I don’t understand, Steve. Why did all this have to happen?”
Steve: “I don’t think it had to happen. In the proper scientific hands, your father’s discovery could have been beneficial.”
The end.
Thoughts: Sigh. Sometimes it’s hard being a long time fan of H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah, I know he’s problematic but there’s no other body of work like his. Lovecraft wrote about the indescribable and unnameable, so it’s really no surprise that his stories have been mostly massacred by the movies. As much as we might enjoy The Reanimator, it owes more to Stuart Gordon than Lovecraft.
Die, Monster, Die! is a (very) loose adaptation of Lovecraft’s tale, The Colour Out of Space, and I don’t think Lovecraft would have recognized his own story [or appreciated the lurid American title]. The filmmakers kept the meteorite angle, but precious little else. They even transplanted the story from New England to the English countryside and renamed the characters.
This was Daniel Haller’s directing debut, after many years of art designing Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations. His eye for set decoration and frame composition is indisputable, although he seems perhaps less successful with some of the actors. The Witley house is a character itself within the movie. Pacing is a noticeable problem; not much happens for two-thirds of the movie, although things pick up at that point. Haller directed only a handful of feature films before moving into television as a highly successful director in the ‘70s-’80s.
At this point in his career, Karloff had lost much of his mobility and the movie was adapted to put Nahum in a wheelchair for Karloff’s comfort. Luckily, he had lost none of his talent. He isn’t given much to do other than be cranky, but when he does have a chance to emote sympathetically in the graveside scene, Karloff comes through. This was Boris Karloff’s first monster role in ~30 years [although that certainly wasn’t him in the monster makeup].
Thank goodness they allowed Nick Adams’ character to be American, because he certainly comes across that way. Several of the British actors are part of the Hammer canon (this was an American International production) and generally get the job done.
Without the Lovecraft connection and Karloff, this would be a pretty run-of-the-mill B-level horror movie. Karloff comes through as best he can with the uninspired material. It might be better to ignore the Lovecraft connection.
Quick bits:
- Die, Monster, Die! was released on a profitable double bill with the much more successful Planet of the Vampires.
- Naturally, given the time period, radiation is blamed for the meteor effects, with a mention of the supernatural thrown in.
- Was the family name “Witley” (instead of the original “Gardner”) supposed to remind us of “Whateley” from The Dunwich Horror?
- Poor Suzan Farmer’s name is spelled wrong on the poster.
Suggested double feature: The best match would be the somewhat more lively The Dunwich Horror (1970), which was also directed by Daniel Haller.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “It will consume you” [For once, I’ll be doing a contemporary movie.]
