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Simply A Masterpiece

People are voting emotionally.

Awesome Movie

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I remember seeing this movie when I was all of 10 years old with my older sister (who should have known better!) I couldn't sleep for days after. This movie is really really scary in a campy, early '70s way. Com'on, who wouldn't get scared with a dead body lying in its coffin, in the middle of the living room, while tape recordings arrive each morning detailing the gruesome events of the previous day -- and, in the corpse's own voice, no less!!??? It's like something out of Agatha Christie wherein relatives of the deceased must survive night after night in a creepy, booby-trapped house. The last one alive gets to keep all the money left behind....the location of which is to be revealed in one final tape! You just gotta have a ghoulish sense of humor to enjoy the cheeky macabre aspects of this horror flick send up. Plus, it really is funny the way these greedy, money hungry people die and, in the end, you kind of feel they all deserved it.

Ah, the brilliance of BCP films.....what can one say? At least this one is fun (just imagine a "Love American Style" episode if made by Hammer Films). Once again a mixture of has-been and never-were big and small-screen actors get bumped off in ways that will seem silly to veteran viewers of Brit-horror films such as TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS and VAULT OF HORROR. It even has the obligatory crappy Shani Wallis song (poor talented-but-totally-misused Shani).

Arnold is a film about a recently deceased wealthy man that kills off his heirs and company from the grave. It is a dark comedy, mixing gory thrills with low-brow comedy. This mix works well overall despite a somewhat lacking script. Most of the credit should go to the cast which is superb. Stella Stevens is ever beautiful, and buxom I might add, as Arnold's newly wed wife after his death. Elsa Lanchester, yes the Bride herself, is winsome as his dottering, cat-pawing sister. Roddy McDowell is as ever charming as his penniless, conniving younger brother. Good turns also are contributed from Patric Knowles, Farley Granger, John McGiver, and Jamie Farr. The best performance is given by British character actor Bernard Fox(known for his role of Dr. Bombay on Bewitched) as a dim-witted policeman that has little tact and sense. His lines are the best and he certainly is the funniest aspect of the film. The cast dies through many grisly deaths. One person is compacted in a garbage truck, another choked to death from a suit, another interred for life in a vault, another beheaded, and a couple pressed together between two walls. Shanni Wallis sings a rather very 70ish tune by the titular name that sets the mood of the film almost immediately as do some of the stylish sets and swirling fogs of the cemetery.

"Arnold" is a fun but minor example of the genre of "Mass Murderer impossibly out-psyches all of his victims" films. For better examples, see either of Vincent Price's "Dr. Phibes" movies, or VP's "Theatre of Blood," probably the best crazed killer on the loose but with a theme movie ever made.But... "Arnold" is sheer fun in the sense of watching a corpse kill off all his heirs solely because he knows them so well. Sure, the methods of killing are ridiculous -- acidic cold cream, a killer suit, a squishing shower, a well placed guillotine -- but the supporting cast is marvellous, the suspense is there, and the "bad guy" wins. Bonus points: Elsa Lancaster, and the dead guy looks a hell of a lot like Jack Cassidy, although he's not.I'd recommend this film as the second rental on a double feature; something to provide gory nasty thrills, but not quite as gross as whatever first choice nastiness you rented that evening.