Synopsis
As Blood-Chilling As Being Buried Alive!
After his wife and her blind sister have died under his care, a doctor's small daughter is kidnapped and reported as buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.
Macabre
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Theatrical
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USA
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USA
01 Oct 1958
- Theatrical
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#29 of 31 - HOOPTOBER 5.0 : We Don’t Need A Stretcher In There We Need A Mop
The Only thing that outshined this delightfully dark horror entry was William Castles Modus Operandi promoting the film! He was a real showman! Handing out $1,000 Lloyds of London Insurance policies to moviegoers! To capitalize on that he staged Nurses (Fake Nurses) in the Lobby at said Theaters! Sometimes parking a hearse at Movie Theaters, other times going as far as sealing himself up inside a coffin just like what was done to the little girl in the film!
I inadvertently lost all my notes on the film so this review is being done pretty much by the seat of my pants!…
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Spooky!
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Decent whodunnit mystery suspense following a small town doctor looking for his six-year-old daughter who’s been kidnapped and buried alive. He is given just five hours to find and rescue her. William Castle's horror films that I've seen so far are more on the goofy side so I assume that's just his style. But the plot in this film is way way darker than expected and less goofy. I enjoyed it for the most parts. It's tense to the very end, some spooky foggy graveyard scenes, and some Castle twists along the way as expected. Long flashbacks and the way they're placed make things a bit confusing but it's fairly fast-paced with a good shock and neat animation in the end.
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HoopTober5.0 - Movie #9 - Macabre
While Macabre is perhaps the least goofiest of William Castle's many horror movies, it somehow ended up being one of my favorites from him. It reminds me of Strait-Jacket where in he takes on a more serious subject. No skeletons popping up, no insects crawling down your spine. Just a story about a crawl through the graveyard, with a doctor looking for his daughter who has been buried alive.
The atmosphere is killer in this. Anytime a movie is primarily set in a graveyard, it is bound to be somewhat good. The story relies a little too much on flashbacks, and there are far too many characters brought into the script. The twist at…
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This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Reviewed this in great detail before on LB, but my general feelings still remain: the plot regarding the doc lives up to the title of the film. Although it would seem Doctor Rodney Barrett is deserved of concern when Marge "comes up missing", he could turn out to be one of William Castle's most loathsome characters. I decided to start with Macabre for my first of Castle's films in October, as it is probably, for me, one of his weaker. Still it has some of those provocative themes, characters, and plot developments Castle slips into his films offsetting the wackier elements and campier aspects.
The blind Alice's death might indicate she died from an abortion or perhaps suicide (it seems…
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There's some good stuff here; Castle manages to make all the sequences that take place in the cemetary incredibly atmospheric (and surprisingly well shot for the type of sensationalist B-movie he trades in). However, this is a very short feature and a lot of it is simply filler: tedious and unnecessary flashback sequences that don't add much to the narrative and overly long monologues by dreary, forgettable actors.
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4th William Castle (after The House on Haunted Hill, Homicidal and Straight-Jacket)
A bit of a letdown after the three amazing films I've seen this week, Macabre is decidedly a weaker Castle affair, but it still has a certain flair for the dramatic, as with all Castle films. A brisk seventy minutes in length, it concerns a small-town doctor who finds that his daughter has, apparently, been buried alive and he's got five hours to find her. Or has he?
The plot, truly, is a bit silly, a little bit like those 'penny-a-line' works from the 19th century. It throws contrivance upon contrivance as it wobbles along, propelled by its sheer hysteria; deaths in childbirth, blind heiresses, creepy coffins and…
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I would say that 'Macabre' is more interesting for its place in history than it is as a good movie, but at the same time it feels a bit unfair to judge a movie like this when you're watching it at home over 60 years later.
This was the film that made William Castle the William Castle. The king of genius theatrical gimmicks. In this case a life insurance for every audience member in case somebody dies of fright. I love that idea and that's why I feel like I can only judge it so much watching it alone in my living room (where I'm sure I'll die without propper insurance).
For a film with a great set up and…
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William Castle bet the house on Macabre, quite literally, mortgaging his home to finance the first of his independent productions which would go on to be his great cinematic legacy.
Macabre isn't quite up there yet, though that poster might suck you in. It was the first of his gimmick flicks, offering $1000 insurance policy to anyone who might die of fright during the film and a recurring shot signalling something scary. He also toured around with it and trotted out his shenannigans for audiences.
It's a little macabre but wholly convoluted for 70 or so minutes of runtime. Not unworthy, but more for a William Castle completist than your average fan.
Considering that his next movie was House on Haunted Hill, he didn't take long to figure it all out.
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“I don't wanna be a wife, and I won't be a mom. I just wanna be what I've been all my life: nothing”
Things start with a small town, the richest man there losing his daughter (both his kids now buried in a short timespan), and the doctor who could have saved her being told in no uncertain terms to leave town but refusing, swearing he's not at fault. Evidently someone doesn't think so, as his own daughter is soon kidnapped and buried alive, with a short timespan to save her and a town full of, if not necessarily suspects, people that have still heard the stories and don't trust him (and can't be trusted) enough to help. Evidently things…
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Actually pretty eerie whenever the convoluted story wasn't getting in the way. Just a big ol' campy whodunnit but I wanted them to stay in that graveyard forever being spooped. People rarely comment on it but Castle had a great eye.
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Beginning: vintage William Castle warning about the deadly consequences of watching this movie. Back in the day, he handed out life insurance policies as people entered the theater, and had nurses posted outside. Imagine if anyone could ever make a fright flick so intense it warranted such measures...
Middle: this is the movie, and it's a bore. Promising a swift suspense yarn (we see a clock and are told that the characters have 75 minutes to find a person who's been buried alive), it reneges on that immediately with a series of flashbacks to flesh out the soap opera melodrama between a bunch of people. Too much plot, not enough scares. Its one legacy (vague spoilers) is the admittedly shocking…
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