Die, Monster, Die!

Rating:
Summary: Ok AIP Horror
Review: "Die, Monster, Die" is passable stuff for horror fans, with good atmosphere, photography, and art direction, and of course the presence of Karloff; but plotwise it's a bit of a tangle, a hackneyed adaptation of Lovecraft's 'The Color Out of Space' that loses the flavor of the story in trying to adapt it to the conventions of the Price/Corman/Poe films. Unique source material is, unfortunately, boiled down to a series of cliches. But for dedicated horror fans, they're good cliches.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Horror, a Must Buy
Review: Die Monster Die! is a tale of Classic Horror starring Horror legend Vincent Price.

Black and White Horror films do not get much better than Vincent Price movies and you can't call yourself a Vincent Price fan unless you've seen this movie.

Now it is immortalized on DVD for a great price, take the time to add it to your collection, you won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, Atmospheric, Midnite Movie!
Review: Enjoyable and atmospheric. Although this is not a great film (which is especially in evidence during the finale, which features effects that border on the goofy by today's standards) it is still an entertaining film and, in my opinion, worth owning. The locations are great - an English town and train station, and a spooky old Mansion - giving this film a moody edge. If you're a fan of B-Movies and a collector of the MGM Midnite Movies Series, you will find this a worthwhile entry. The visual quality of the DVD is very high and the packaging of the DVD is one more reason that this series is worth collecting. Each MGM Midnite Movie features fresh cover art, great back cover descriptions, and look great on the shelf since it is a coordinated collection. I also own Pit and the Pendulum, Fall of the House of Usher, Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and recommend them all. The other customer and Leonard Maltin REVIEWS will help you navigate and decide which of the MGM Midnite Movies are worth the risk of actually purchasing.

Rating:
Summary: BASED ON LOVECRAFT'S THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
Review: Even though this movie does not follow HPL's story it is still exciting to hear so many Lovecraftian references in a movie. It is a must for all those HPL nuts who can't get enough of the mythos. Let us join forces and demand that this video be re-released!!! I'll take the first five.

Rating:
Summary: Not even Karloff can salvage this Lovecraftian debacle
Review: H. P. Lovecraft's novella "The Colour Out of Space" is transplanted to England in this 1965 American International film directed by Daniel Haller. Nick Adams, saved temporarily from his monster movie career in Japan, plays Stephen Reinhart, who goes to Arkham, England to visit his honey, Susan Whitely (Suzan Farmer). Her family lives in an obviously haunted-house type mansion where they are feared and hated by their neighbors. Although Susan is something of a ditz, her parents are genuinely spooky. Boris Karloff plays Nahum Whitley, a scientist bound to a wheelchair, while his wife Letitia (Freda Jackson) never leaves her curtained bed. Nahum has padlocked the greenhouse and the dungeon, uh, cellar, while Letitia begs for Stephen to take Susan and go far, far away. Of course, it is too late. Nahum's family has been worshipping demons for ages and they have a glowing meteorite that is making plants and animals (including Latitia) mutate.

For one of the create horror writers of all-time, Lovecraft's stories sure make for a lousy set of films. A couple of episodes of "Night Gallery" game close and "The Dunwich Horror" is actually mediocre, but you know this one is in trouble as soon as you see the title. Karloff had almost died from pneumonia, but even in a wheel chair he out acts everybody else in the film. But the entire Cuthulu Mythos background of Lovecraft is reduced to a few bizarre statutes and weird books in the Whitley library. To add insult to injury, the only DVD extras on this disc are the theatrical trailers. Maybe if you never read Lovecraft you can take on another star for this one, but that's really no excuse.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, Atmospheric, Midnite Movie!
Review: H. P. Lovecraft's novella "The Colour Out of Space" is transplanted to England in this 1965 American International film directed by Daniel Haller. Nick Adams, saved temporarily from his monster movie career in Japan, plays Stephen Reinhart, who goes to Arkham, England to visit his honey, Susan Whitely (Suzan Farmer). Her family lives in an obviously haunted-house type mansion where they are feared and hated by their neighbors. Although Susan is something of a ditz, her parents are genuinely spooky. Boris Karloff plays Nahum Whitley, a scientist bound to a wheelchair, while his wife Letitia (Freda Jackson) never leaves her curtained bed. Nahum has padlocked the greenhouse and the dungeon, uh, cellar, while Letitia begs for Stephen to take Susan and go far, far away. Of course, it is too late. Nahum's family has been worshipping demons for ages and they have a glowing meteorite that is making plants and animals (including Latitia) mutate.

For one of the create horror writers of all-time, Lovecraft's stories sure make for a lousy set of films. A couple of episodes of "Night Gallery" game close and "The Dunwich Horror" is actually mediocre, but you know this one is in trouble as soon as you see the title. Karloff had almost died from pneumonia, but even in a wheel chair he out acts everybody else in the film. But the entire Cuthulu Mythos background of Lovecraft is reduced to a few bizarre statutes and weird books in the Whitley library. To add insult to injury, the only DVD extras on this disc are the theatrical trailers. Maybe if you never read Lovecraft you can take on another star for this one, but that's really no excuse.

Rating:
Summary: Not even Karloff can salvage this Lovecraftian debacle
Review: H. P. Lovecraft's novella "The Colour Out of Space" is transplanted to England in this 1965 American International film directed by Daniel Haller. Nick Adams, saved temporarily from his monster movie career in Japan, plays Stephen Reinhart, who goes to Arkham, England to visit his honey, Susan Whitely (Suzan Farmer). Her family lives in an obviously haunted-house type mansion where they are feared and hated by their neighbors. Although Susan is something of a ditz, her parents are genuinely spooky. Boris Karloff plays Nahum Whitley, a scientist bound to a wheelchair, while his wife Letitia (Freda Jackson) never leaves her curtained bed. Nahum has padlocked the greenhouse and the dungeon, uh, cellar, while Letitia begs for Stephen to take Susan and go far, far away. Of course, it is too late. Nahum's family has been worshipping demons for ages and they have a glowing meteorite that is making plants and animals (including Latitia) mutate.

For one of the create horror writers of all-time, Lovecraft's stories sure make for a lousy set of films. A couple of episodes of "Night Gallery" game close and "The Dunwich Horror" is actually mediocre, but you know this one is in trouble as soon as you see the title. Karloff had almost died from pneumonia, but even in a wheel chair he out acts everybody else in the film. But the entire Cuthulu Mythos background of Lovecraft is reduced to a few bizarre statutes and weird books in the Whitley library. To add insult to injury, the only DVD extras on this disc are the theatrical trailers. Maybe if you never read Lovecraft you can take on another star for this one, but that's really no excuse.

Rating:
Summary: Why not re-release??
Review: I first saw this movie in the early seventies. Some aspect of the movie made enough of an impression on me to have me looking the internet over for a copy for my own personal collection. I would love for this movie to be re-released and to feel the eerie atmosphere inherent in the movie once again.

Rating:
Summary: underrated sci-fi horror film
Review: I have always liked this film, even though checking through reference books one may find critical comments. It is true that a mistake was made in changing H.P Lovecraft's setting from New England (which of course was the deeply-felt source of all of his horror concepts) to England itself. And the story does not do full justice to his brilliant original, which is a classic of horror-literature. But that aside, the film is extremely atmospheric, and has strong performances by Karloff and all the other actors (including Nick Adams, who despite odd casting does a decent job as a modern American adrift in a strange old-world setting). And on top of that it has one of the eeriest scenes in all horror films, where Nick Adams and the beautiful Susan Farmer sneak into a greenhouse, which is a source of mystery throughout the entire film, and discover a menagerie of mutated monsters, illuminated only by flashlight. This scene is a high-water mark in monster special FX, even though it is very brief. Definitely worth owning in a DVD quality release!

Rating:
Summary: Don't Let The Cheese Fool You
Review: I know some people will groan about this, but I feel this movie has never gotten the credit it deserves. Mostly because there is a tendency to look with prejudice upon it's leading man, Nick Adams, because of the slow-down in his carreer just before his untimely and mysterious death at age 36. My father was a big naysayer of Nick Adams. His prejudice stemmed from Adams' participation in Rebel Without A Cause, a film my father saw as encouragement for youth to openly oppose their parents, without showing the parents' side of the story. However, if you watch Nick Adams at work, and keep an open mind, whether it's in one of his most famous films, like Rebel Without A Cause or Mister Roberts, or in his now legendary television series, The Rebel, you'll see a talented actor who was at ease in front of the camera. In spite of his young features (at times described as baby-faced) Adams had a screen presence that was strong and capable. Over time, my attitude of him has turned from thinking of him as a so-so player, to that of an underrated actor of whom life ended before something better came along. After you've viewed enough B-grade and lesser horror films, you begin to appreciate when a qualified and talented actor is given the lead in one of these films. And in Die Monster Die, Nick Adams was perhaps at his best during that slow-down period of his life. It's certainly one of the better B-grade horror films he was forced to work in at the time. And it's one of the better releases by MGM in its Midnight Movies collection.

If you look at the title alone, you're likely to pass on this one, thinking Cheese all the way, but don't let the title stop you. I think this was one of the most original science fiction/horror films to come out of American International pictures. It's based on an H.P. Lovecraft story called The Colour out of Space. It does, of course, take poetic license in order to make a movie-length script, but it keeps enough of the original story in order to feel and taste like H.P. Lovecraft. Boris Karloff alone is worth the movie. His portrayal of a wheel chair bound quasi-scientist obsessed with using a radioactive meteor discovered on his land to make a better world is wonderful gothic material. The film has gothic painted all over it, from the sprawling English country side, to the thunderstorms, to the ancient torture chambers in the basement of Karloff's rambling English manor. These gothic feels combined with the science-fiction theme are exactly what make this movie feel like an H.P. Lovecraft story.

The film features a wonderful, if brief performance by Freda Jackson, perhaps remembered best for her cackling performance in The Brides of Dracula, where she hunkered down over a freshly filled grave and coaxed a new vampire victim through the surface of the moist dirt with loving, motherly whispers.

This movie also introduced one of the loveliest British starlets of the time to the big screen, one Suzan Farmer, who can also be seen in Dracula, Prince of Darkness. She plays the somewhat confused and uncertain lover of Nick Adams' character. Their scenes together seem to be filled with genuine emotion, giving just the right feeling of two lovers caught up in deadly mystery.

And MGM did a wonderful job with this low-cost DVD. This film is presented in Wide Screen, enhanced for Wide Screen Television (which is the same thing as Anamorphic Wide Screen). Whatever print they used for this film was beautiful. The colors are deep and lush, the scenes clear and crisp with very little show of wear over the years. The only extra is the Theatrical Preview, and the scene-selection option. But who cares for anything more! After all, if extras are more important to you than the film, you should save your money and buy film-history books. I for one salute MGM for offering us these affordable gems in a nice quality DVD.

If you're a Nick Adams fan, then buy the movie for his strong leading man performance. If you like good quality, B-grade science-fiction horror, I don't think you'll be at disappointed in this movie. And if you're a Boris Karloff fan, it's a must-see. And, if you're a Vincent Price film nut, as I am, you'll be excited to hear that MGM has released two other beautifully rendered DVDs at the same low price staring this legend of the horror cinema; The Abominable Doctor Phibes, and the sequel, Doctor Phibes Rises Again (both under the Midnight Movies titles). Plus! Watch for Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum coming out very soon from MGM.