Die, Monster, Die!

Die, Monster, Die! (British title: Monster of Terror) is a British-American 1965 Pathécolor horror film directed by Daniel Haller. The film is a loose adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's story The Colour Out of Space.[2] It was shot in February and March 1965 at Shepperton Studios under the working title The House at the End of the World.[3]

Die, Monster, Die!
Theatrical release poster with artwork by Reynold Brown
Directed byDaniel Haller
Produced byPat Green
Written byJerry Sohl
Based onThe Colour Out of Space
1927 story in Amazing Stories
by H.P. Lovecraft
StarringBoris Karloff
Nick Adams
Freda Jackson
Suzan Farmer
Terence De Marney
Music byDon Banks
CinematographyPaul Beeson
Edited byAlfred Cox
Production
company
Alta Vista Film Productions
Distributed byAnglo-Amalgamated (UK)
American International Pictures (US)
Release date
  • 27 October 1965 (1965-10-27) (U.S.)
  • 20 February 1966 (1966-02-20) (UK)
Running time
72 minutes (US)
80 minutes (UK)[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish

American International Pictures released the film as a double feature with Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires (1965).[4]

Plot

Stephen Reinhart, an American scientist (Nick Adams), pays a visit to the estate of his British fiancée's family. He finds a scorched area of countryside near an enormous crater. Local townspeople are hostile toward him and refuse to either drive him to his destination or talk about the family that lives there. The source of all these problems is later revealed to be a radioactive meteorite kept hidden in the basement by his girlfriend's father, Nahum Witley (Boris Karloff), who has been using the radiation to mutate plant and animal life, with horrific consequences to his subjects and to members of his family. Nahum's wife, Letitia, mutated by the meteorite and driven insane, dies in an attack on Steve and Susan. After Helga, a maid who has been mutated and driven mad by radiation, comes after Nahum, he is mutated after his attacker falls on the meteorite and is killed. The Nahum monster attacks Steve and Susan, but falls from a balcony and bursts into flame when he hits the floor, setting the entire Witley mansion ablaze. Steve and Susan escape from the burning mansion, and never look back.

Cast

Release

In the USA, American International Pictures released the film on 27 October 1965 as the first feature on a double bill with Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires (1965).[4] In the UK, the film was shown to the film trade on 4 February 1966 and released on the 20th the same month, supported by Roger Corman's film The Haunted Palace (1963), which is also based on a Lovecraft story.[5]

Critical reaction

In their book Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, Andrew Migliore and John Strysik call Die, Monster, Die! a "textbook example of the walking-around-endlessly-in-a-big-house school of filmmaking".[6] G. Noel Gross, writing for the DVD review website DVD Talk, writes: "The plodding plot would be more painful if the flick were longer, but the intriguing meld of gothic horror and contemporary sci-fi is hard to pass up".[7]

Comic book adaption
  • Dell Movie Classic: Die, Monster, Die! (March 1966)[8]

See also

References
  1. Die, Monster, Die! at the American Film Institute Catalog
  2. Stephen Jacobs, Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster, Tomahawk Press 2011 p 468-469
  3. Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema, Reynolds & Hearn 2000
  4. Lucas, Tim (2007). Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. Video Watchdog. p. 600. ISBN 0-9633756-1-X.
  5. Kinematograph Weekly vol 583 no 3044, 3 February 1966
  6. Migliore, Andrew; Strysik, John (February 1, 2006). Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft. Night Shade Books. ISBN 978-1892389350.
  7. Die, Monster, Die! : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video
  8. Dell Movie Classic: Die, Monster, Die! at the Grand Comics Database
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