Watch Macabre Serenade For Free

Undescribable Perfection

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

House of Evil has just one thing going for it, Boris Karloff. One of those actors who always gave his all regardless of the film and material, Karloff's performance is sprightly and dignified, never less than convincing. Unfortunately it is one such performance that deserved a much better film. Nothing else works and any other Karloff film yet to be seen by me has to be really, really bad to be worse than House of Evil. The film is pure tack visually, the sets don't convince at all in Gothic atmosphere and the photography is just slipshod. The dialogue is wretched, a lot of it is ridiculous and senseless and everybody visibly looks awkward saying it. Don't look for a coherent story either, it's instead incredibly dull(not helped by that some scenes are too talky), devoid of thrills, suspense or creepiness and has unintentional humour, mainly because of how bad the dialogue is and how cheesy the deaths are. Let's not forget the music either, shrill, strident and far too obvious, when something sinister or deadly happens the music is annoying and very repetitive too. Last but not least the acting, with the sole exception of Karloff it is very amateurish. In particular Quintin Bulnes seems to be impersonating Peter Lorre, and does so terribly. Julissa is ravishingly beautiful but doesn't have the acting skills to match. All in all, a truly inept film all round apart from Karloff. 2/10 Bethany Cox

House of Evil (1968) * 1/2 (out of 4) One of the four Mexican films Boris Karloff made at the end of his career, this one here being the first to get released. In the film Karloff plays an rich, if eccentric man who calls his family together for a will reading. He ends up dying and his fears of a maniac stalking the house taking out eyeballs appears to be coming true as the family members start dropping dead one by one. Okay, there's certainly a bit of sadness seeing Karloff go out with these Mexican films but at the same time you have to respect his wishes to continue working. From what I've read, he didn't need money so apparently these movies were made simply so he could continue to act. I hadn't seen this film, also known as DANCE OF DEATH, since I was very young and I remember it being quite bad but this repeat viewing shows that it is bad but certainly not as horrible as THE FEAR CHAMBER or SNAKE PEOPLE. I think Karloff turns in a pretty good performance here, which also includes him not being forced to use a wheelchair throughout the production. I think he manages to be quite believable as the mean old man who certainly doesn't have any love for his greedy family. The supporting players are all fairly forgettable as they add nothing to the film although sex pot Julissa, who appeared in three of the four Karloff films, comes off mildly entertaining and apparently is still working today. One thing that does benefit this film is that it actually makes sense. The other three films in the series all have plots that make no sense and the scenes with Karloff appear to have been shot without too much thought going into them as they really don't mix too well with the "other" footage. That's not the case here as everything flows pretty smoothly together. The death scenes are all silly looking but that's to be expected I guess. Karloff fans might want to check this notorious films out but others should certainly stay clear.

Felt mine was while watching this...but it seems that is the reason for insanity running in the family in this film. Not that makes a lot of sense anyway, as others have mentioned, this was one of Karloff's last films and it's only his screen presence that lends it any credibility at all. It's sad that all of the great legends of the horror films in the sound era were eventually reduced to starring in low grade rubbish like this. Marginally, Boris did get off slightly better than poor old Bela Lugosi but not by much. Boris does his best and give him credit for trying to hold this mess together. The strident background music doesn't help and distracts from any lucid moment. Apart from Boris, the rest of the Mexican cast are dubbed into some strange, clipped, English monotone that is reminiscent of the type used in porn films of the late seventies. At a guess I think it's Edgar Allen Poe's 'House of Usher' that this is taken from but you'd be hard pressed to find a great deal of Poe in the finished article.Still, there are far better films out there with Boris Karloff at his best, search them out and give this a wide berth, unless you want the curse of the 'shrinking brain' too!

Boris Karloff is Matthias Morteval, a dying, lonely old nut who lives in Morhenge Mansion with some servants and tells his doctor friend, "Don't try to doctor me, doctor! I'm disgustingly healthy!" He invites his nieces and nephews to his home and warns them they may have inherited a genetic disease that causes madness by "shrinking the brain" (?)***SPOILERS***Morteval/Karloff ends up dying, and murderous "toys" (designed by his dead brother) start killing off the relatives. A mini cannon fires real bullets into a guys face, a life-sized knight in armor attacks with an axe and a dancing Sheik stabs people with a knife. One guy getting strangled makes some hilarious faces. At the end, Julissa and her boyfriend find Karloff is still alive and hiding out in the dungeon where steel gates seal off the room. He plays the recurring organ theme music (sort of a death rattle used for the killings), the brother's spirit starts talking ("The whole house will go with me!") and the mansion goes up in flames.This senseless mess is too dark, boring and the stupid dialogue never matches the lips.