Beyond the Cycle: 3. Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

Okay, fun fact: I got so used to seeing this movie filling out TCM's marathons of the Roger Corman’s AIP Poe movies that I thought it was another American International product until, well, about a minute before sitting down to write this blog.  See, this is why it’s always important to check your sources, kids.  Granted, AIP did distribute Die, Monster, Die!, and even put it out as a double feature with Corman’s The Haunted Palace in the UK, but the actual heavy lifting on the moviemaking does seem to have been spearheaded by AIP’s overseas collaborators Anglo-Amalgamated.  I’m hardly the only one to slip up on this kind of point.  You’d be amazed how many film sources contradict each other over which movies AIP actually “made” and which they just took credit for.  The point is, the cast and crew of Die, Monster Die! has next to no overlap with Corman’s Poe movies outside of the the prominent appearance of Boris Karloff… which makes it all the weirder that this TOTALLY looks like it belongs in the Poe Cycle.  Quite frankly, this looks more like a Roger Corman Lovecraft movie than the ACTUAL Roger Corman Lovecraft movie!

Released in the UK as “Monster of Terror” and originally filmed under the name “The House At The End Of The World” (which is frankly much better than either of the official titles), Die, Monster, Die! is actually an adaptation of Lovecraft’s story “The Colour Out of Space” …and before anybody asks: No.  I haven’t seen the more recent Nic Cage adaptation, so I can’t draw any comparisons between that movie and this one.  Besides, even if I had, I’d be too busy drawing connective lines to the Technicolor Gothic Horrors of Roger Corman -which this movie is so blatantly aiming to imitate- to have time for such contemporary comparisons.  Right off the bat, with the swirling psychedelic spirals of paint appearing behind the opening credits, it is IMMEDIATELY obvious that Die, Monster Die! wants to slip in between House of Usher and The Pit and The Pendulum without being notices.  And as if my introductory spiel didn’t make it clear, director Daniel Haller and company pull that trick off nicely.  Admittedly, the movie does have a bit of a different feel to it during exterior shots due to the fact that this movie actually HAS exterior shots, replacing sound stages for the English countryside (and yes, Lovecraft scholars will already be shaking their heads over the fact that this movie’s version of Arkham has inexplicably switched continents), but overall the movie manages to maintain a fairly consistent mood.  In fact, I dare say that Haller does a better job maintaining atmosphere outdoors than Corman himself did while shooting The Tomb of Ligea.  And don’t think I’m being nitpicky by continuing to bring up Corman’s flicks here, because Die, Monster, Die! really does do absolutely everything in its power to make the viewer think of the Poe Cycle’s Greatest Hits.  From the general aesthetic tricks of decaying gothic settings with bright colorful flourishes to specific set pieces pulled straight from the Poe movies (see the row of family portraits ripped directly out of Usher), I feel like I’d be a bit of a spoilsport if I DIDN’T constantly draw comparisons to Corman’s movies.  It’s obviously what they want.

I guess I do need to talk about the actual plot at some point, which is one of the great advantages Die, Monster Die! has over the Poe movies: the source material actually HAS one.  Yes, the movie plays fast and loose with a lot of details in order to more closely fit the Corman mold, but for once the source material is recognizable in a form beyond simply appropriating the title… which this movie ironically DOESN’T use, in any of its forms.  My point is, the foundational tale of a spooky house that seems cursed except it’s not so much black magic as a meteorite with alien radiation, THAT’S more or less intact, and I like it a lot.  As much as I may have a soft spot for this particular strain of Drive-In Gothic Horror, I’m ultimately a SciFi geek at heart, not a Horror one.  So it’s fun to see all the stock Gothic tropes employed in a story that ultimately turns into a sort of 50s Monster Movie.  Seriously, I keep bringing up Roger Corman, but in a lot of ways this is probably what a Bert I. Gordon version of H.P. Lovecraft would have looked like.  If you think that suggests that Die, Monster, Die! is a bit light on the Cosmic Horror side of things… well, it was released with a title like “Die, Monster, Die!” so yeah, existential dread isn’t really the point here.  But again, if you approach this film as less of a serious attempt at adapting “The Colour Out Of Space” and more as an exercise in using its basic plot structure as a framework on which to hang all the trappings of Corman’s Poe movies, it delivers well enough.

Acting wise, Die, Monster Die! is fine.  Even at this late stage in his career, Boris Karloff is still Boris Karloff, and he still manages to walk away with every scene he’s in despite not being physically capable of walking in most of those scenes.  The man can shift from suspicious to wise to threatening to sympathetic all in the course of a single scene and tie it all together seamlessly.  Still, Karloff's not our leading man, that role goes to the much younger and physically intact Nick Adams.  Normal people will know Adams best for working with James Dean and Elvis Presley, while anybody who’d read MY stuff will know him as the Token White Guy in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Frankenstein Conquers The World.  He’s nowhere near as versatile as Karloff, delivering a performance that never really extends beyond “annoyed at everything,” but I actually think that works well in this context.  One of the great dangers in these Gothic Horror stories is that the main character can often come across as annoyingly docile or ineffectual.  After all, he can’t find out what’s going on too soon (and, heaven forbid, DO something about it) or else there just isn’t a movie.  Adams’ portrayal of Stephen Reinhart as the one brash American surrounded by vague, mysterious Brits gives him at least an illusion of having some agency, so it doesn’t feel like he’s just sitting around waiting to have things explained.  Compare him to the blandness of Mark Damon in House of Usher to see what I mean.  Beyond these two, the cast is… fine.  Freda Jackson does some fun scenery chewing as Letitia, and Patrick Magee (late of Masque Of The Red Death) has a fun one-off appearance, but the rest of the cast is, at best, competent.  Suzan Farmer is fairly forgettable as our leading lady, and as for the rest of the villagers…

...okay, it’s probably not fair of me to spend as much time as I’m about to harping on a since scene, but the first few minutes of Die, Monster Die! are always the hardest for me to sit through, thanks to one Gothic Horror trope I really wish the movie HADN’T indulged in.  When Reinhart first arrives in Arkham, we’re forced to suffer through several straight minutes of the classic “spooked locals won’t give directions to The Bad Place” routine, and I hate it every time.  I complained about it in my blog about The Haunted Palace, but gave that movie partial credit for at least subverting the trope a bit by getting to the point fairly quickly.  Die, Monster Die!, on the other hand, just drags things out to an insufferable degree and does it quite badly.  I know this whole routine dates all the way back to the likes of Dracula, but in those cases it’s to depict how thoroughly dominated the locals are by the oppressive threat, a sign of fear.  The Arkhamites here, however, don’t come off as afraid so much as willfully unhelpful jerks.  I already don’t like when a movie wastes my time by having characters deliberately avoid advancing the plot by not telling each other things, but this bunch positively flaunt the fact that they’re not going to do anything.  It honestly comes across less like they’re scared of the Witley place and more like they’re too xenophobic to help out a foreigner.  And just to add insult to injury, this worst written bit also happens to have the worst actors of the film.  The one laughing drunk guy at the village pub honestly seems like a character from a PARODY of this type of scene, not in a movie playing it straight.

And even if that one particular trope isn’t as much of a pet peeve for you as it is for me, there’s still plenty of fair criticism for this movie, especially in the final third.  The movie does kind of collapse into “everybody wanders up and down the halls of the house” for shot after shot in long stretches, and most of the monster effects are a bit underwhelming even for those who’ve already adjusted their expectations to 60s Drive-In standards.  Get ready for one of the least threatening Killer Plants in film history, not to mention the Amazing Tin Foil Man.  Combine that with some occasionally disorienting editing, and I can definitely see how Die, Monster, Die! wouldn’t be for everyone.  However, if you’ve already devoured all of Corman’s Poe Cycle and are hungry for something similar, then I still say this movie does a better job at being the Poe Cycle We Have At Home than any of American International’s more direct attempt to continue the brand after Corman had moved on.  But the thing is, AIP were far from the only studio in the market to cash in on Corman’s winning formula, and some of them even managed to secure the one key ingredient that Die, Monster Die! lacked.  After all, as good as Boris Karloff is, we all know there’s no substitute of Vincent Price…