Macabre (1958) watch online HD

I finally saw this on TV several years ago and wish I had taped it. It's got strong story elements that could have been developed into something really great.

The idea of a funeral to be held at night because the deceased, the daughter of a very wealthy man, had been blind sets the tone. Add a race against time to save a kidnapping victim who's been buried alive and you've got the elements of a tidy thriller.

My understanding is that the novel this was based on, THE CONCRETE GARDEN if I remember the title correctly, was actually written by several mystery writers. It was a project where writer A came up with the concept and wrote opening, then passed it to writer B who developed it and threw in complications that would make writer C sweat bullets to resolve. The fact that there were so many writers involved seems to have made it very difficult to get the rights to the story, and that's why it's the only one of William Castle's thrillers not available on video.

We've seen remakes of several of Castle's works. Maybe someone will discover this one and get the rights issue resolved.

When I first saw this movie, I was around 9 or 10 years old. This is William Castle's first "official" horror movie. There are no monsters in it and no killers, at least no "graphic" killings, but for some reason, this has always been one of my favorite William Castle movies. I remember watching it real late at night. I think the intro and the end credits were somehow "scary" to me. At the end, as the credits are rolling, there is a cartoon of a "macabre" parade walking by. I still remember that to this day. One of the cartoon characters is carrying his own head. I'm 50 years old now and it's funny how a person can remember insignificant stuff like that over the years. I sure wish this movie would be released on DVD. I would love to see it in crystal clarity like the other William Castle movies that have been released on DVD.

What set this film apart from all others playing at the time, was an insurance policy, issued by Lloyds Of London, given out at the box office, and insuring the patron against "death by fright" during the viewing. Of course, I doubt that anyone's relatives managed to collect the one million dollar face value, but it certainly managed to lure in a packed house.

One scene ,in particular, caused a few hesitations in my cardiac functions, despite the films generally boring overtones. One of the many false leads in the search for the missing child, led to a graveyard. An interrment was taking place during a dismal rainstorm,and the child supposedly was buried in the open grave. The camera was positioned up in the trees, as the would be rescuers dug frantically at the grave, rapidly filling with rainwater. As the coffin was unearthed and opened, the camera zoomed in for a closeup of the morbid contents, prompting ear splitting screams from the audience,and raising me out of my seat. Although only a partially melted wax doll, it did resemble a decomposing corpse.

This excellent use of the element of surprise and shock, made this ordinary film, memorable.

I remember the hype surrounding this movie when we were kids. It was said that people were dying in movie theaters, it was so frightening. Little children would have heart attacks. Naturally, we all begged to go. We never let up and so our mothers eventually said yes. I saw it at the River Park Theater in South Bend, Indiana, on a Saturday afternoon. The place was packed with kids. Movies cost 35 cents in those days, and the parents didn't come in -- they just dropped you off and picked you up. I remember being thrilled with anticipation, then keeping my face in my hands for about half the movie. I've never forgotten Macabre. Now Matt Drudge says a lady died in the theater watching Mel Gibson's "Passion." As far as hype goes, we've heard this one before.

I dragged my mother to the Cedar Movie Theater in Minneapolis to watch a triple feature horror show. There was a casket in front of the theatre. I wonder where they got that. The Attack of the Crab Monsters was one film; this one was the second; the third I can't remember. She slept through all three. I was only 10 at the time. We had seen the hype for this on TV. Lloyds of London, a million dollars, all you had to do was to die of fright. Anyway, what turned out to be a pretty average movie with the "buried alive" thing at the center wasn't nearly as interesting as those talking crustaceans. This is really a police mystery. It does have atmosphere. There is a lot of rain. Why do these graveyard things always have so much rain? It is suspenseful at times but terribly talky as well. At my age, seeing a corpse was pretty frightening. When I had a chance to see it again about thirty years later, it really seemed ordinary.

I've certainly seen better movies. This one was OK, but the characters were really lousy types for the most part. Half way along I pretty much figured out who the actual culprit was, but I wasn't quite sure or why. The graveyard looks like nobody had been buried in it since 1899, and nobody really seemed to care that a little girl was missing and buried alive, at least they didn't move any faster because of this. Polly, who I recall seeing in a very good Alfred Hitchcock a few years back really needed to tone things down. She took forever telling the girl's father what happened during the phone call from the kidnapper. I wanted to beat it out of her.

Lastly, what kind of people are these? Polly, the father, the housekeeper and the grandfather all know Marge is missing, and they still decide to attend Nancy's funeral instead of continuing the search? Say whaaaa? The grandfather falls into the open grave at the funeral and nobody even blinks? Nobody even tries to help him? Nobody even acts like they saw anything unusual? Really?

A doctor in a small town has done a good job of making himself hated because of his role in the deaths of two sisters. When his daughter disappears and a caller announces that she has been buried alive, will the unpopular doctor uncover the MACABRE scheme, or will the cute little girl die a horrible, frightening death?

Any movie that dares cast the lovable Jim "Mr. Magoo" Backus as the sort of brutish sheriff that Sterling Hayden could have done in his sleep does have something going for it. Any movie that features a slutty rich blind girl (who makes time with the pool boy AND Jim Backus AND our surly doctor hero) has a definite noir appeal. And the attention paid to clocks and the passing of time shows that the director at least has a concept of how a film might generate suspense.

But, a movie with the amount of bad, bad acting this one does, indicates a director perhaps more concerned with the promotion of his movie than the making of it. The logical flaws of the film are really extraordinary, beginning with small things, such as the distance between the small town and its old creepy graveyard, and advancing to the large, such as our hero's steadfast refusal to call the cops. And the final resolution, alas, is more disappointing than surprising. The best thing that can be said about the "promotional" aspects of the film -- mostly a rather campy opening announcement about how really truly scary all this is going to be, and a Charles Adams - like animated closing credit sequence, is that these campy things really don't get in the way.

Worth seeing, because the Jim Backus performance is the sort a revelation that can happen when a good character actor is totally cast against type. But the world won't come to an end if you miss this.

In the old days shockers sometimes gave you more than nightmares for your fifty cents. You also got an experience and sometimes and a goody that would later be worth a ton on ebay.I still have my barf bags from Mark Of The Devil,my Ghost Viewer From 13 ghosts and a pair of scratch and sniff 3d glasses from a showing of Gorilla At Large. Castle set a standard for hype when he came up with the ad campaign for Macabre.He had already been cranking out low budget mystery flicks during the forties and tried his hand at the gimmicky 3D craze of the fifties what could be done to reel them in now?It was easy. Castle made the main thread of this so-so film about a kidnapped child buried alive so that kids would fill in the scares with their minds then added the trick of insuring the audience against death by fright to make you think you were gonna get more than what was actually shown.Castle and his ad man were also shrewd about placing many TV ads during weekday dinner time so that the kids would bug mom all week about it and then Castle himself would go on local TV dance shows even kids clown programs and dare us to get the pants scared off ourselves.I remember him making an appearance on The Chucko The Birthday Clown show.When Chucko put on the special glasses they showed a happy ghost bopping around.When I got to the show and saw skeletons and head choppings I just about crapped. Years later when I saw what a Leave It TO Beaver type of affair 13 Ghosts is I realized what a genius Castle was especially since the ghost remover never completely removed them.Macabre is talky and draggy even at 72 minutes but I've seen much worse and the art direction and moody photography is nice and spooky.

Dukey

William Castle's first excursion into the horror genre is not really scary at all. It's a mild murder mystery about several dislikable characters, one of them presumably having committed a grizzly crime. It gets bogged down midway with some flashback sequences which really don't help the narrative THAT much. The performances are well acted and the film manages to keep a decent level of intrigue and curiosity throughout. It's also unusual to see Jim Backus in a rather unlikable role. However, being advertised as a "horror" film, it fails to provide enough ample shocks to please in that department and it lacks some of the chills and humorous touches of Castle's later work. Still, it's worth a look as the first of the William Castle "gimmick" films.

i remember "macabre" when the ads for the movies first appeared.one consisted of a sad looking man with a top hat driving a horse drawn hearse containing a flowered draped casket. under the title"macabre" was this line "see it with someone who can carry you home". I remember the front of the theater had a real casket on display. it was opened and it was a hideous looking corpse with the Lloyd's of London policy displayed on the inside of the lined lid of the casket. I wanted to go see it that weekend, but my mother said to me "do you want to die?"so I chickened out. I later heard from my school chums that the movie was a big disappointment and don't bother to see it. I finally got to see it during halloween of 1960 at the same theater where it first opened. there was no casket there to greet me.so i just had the movie to deal with. In watching it I was waiting for the shock moments to occur, but there were just not there, except during the scene in the casket room, and the one in the mausoleum and of course the grand finale with the graveside service at midnight and the discovery of the small casket with it's horrible contents that managed to issue a scream or two from the rather small audience. I still enjoyed the movie regardless of it's shortcomings and can hardly wait till it makes it on DVD.

A ticking clock visually accompanies a prologue for Macabre as a warning is announced regarding the possibility of fright that could lead to injury for the film spectators. The clock will reappear at intervals throughout the film and is an object from the diegesis of the film (it hangs over the funeral parlor like a theater marquee). The clock was perhaps Castle's most popular motif throughout his career. Macabre is Castle's first gimmick horror film and his first teaming with screenwriter Robb White. They formed an excellent partnership and brought their A-game to B-films. There is creative framing, good blocking/staging of the characters as well as novel lighting setups which help to create an eerie, yet familiar mood (the familiarity makes it all the more eerie of course). Some reviewers have criticized the use of flashback sequences and at first I was inclined to agree about their superfluousness. I reversed myself when I discovered that Christine White's performance was the bulk of what I remembered from the film. She makes an impression as does her dynamic character, caught between childish innocence and vamp seduction. What her character is truly blind to is conscious self-reflection and introspection and this provides a cue for the audience to begin evaluating information differently while experiencing the film. I believe that White and Castle hoped to elicit a sense of suspicion and paranoia for the audience through these plotting techniques. The flashbacks are not convoluted but do certainly contribute to an over-arching contrivance in the plot of the story as it pertains to trysts and family relationships. Other contrivances are just silly - a dying old man wields a devastating cane in a manner that would require the lats of Atlas himself. The contrivances hold up though as does the gimmick Castle employed to generate hype about the film. The beneficiary agreement that patrons signed when attending Macabre is not hokey in the slightest as it connects up perfectly with the story and main plot point of the film itself. "How do I know there was a phone call" is an important line in the film that marks a further progression in the fostering of suspicion and paranoia. These single-minded goals keep Macabre true to its genre and the mood it seeks to create. The second flashback may seem too obvious but it aptly supports the paranoid suspicious mood Castle hopes to propagate through the characters and surely within the audience as well. The main spook of the film is a blink-and-miss-it kind of ordeal and is more relevant as a diversion for closure than as a genuine creator of shock or terror. The final shot of the film is abrupt - curt and discourteous - and is likely the worst shot in the film as a result. It is followed by the most ham-handed part of the film where the voice over narration starts up again, this time reminding - or warning - the audiences to keep their lips sealed about the ending of the film once leaving the theater. I cannot understand this warning because it seems to presume that young people are sufficiently immature to thrill in schadenfreude spoilers while neglecting the recognition that said young people would also necessarily be the types to do the opposite of whatever an adult tells them. Ironically moronic if you ask me. Excellent animation is provided for the end credits and many felt that it was the highlight of an otherwise lack-luster film. I would tend to disagree with that opinion. Macabre is a fun, well-paced, well-directed, well-scripted, well-acted suspense thriller horror film that marks a special time in film history as the B movie attempted to grow some legs at the box office and some independent wings in the creativity department. After watching the dreary Katzman-Castle historical dramas, Macabre is a sight for sore eyes.

Learning of a great treachery against his daughter, a man and his wife race to the graveyard containing her before a deranged madman can win out in his quest for revenge.

An exceptionally flawed and not really all that worthwhile William Castle gimmick effort, only this time the gimmick isn't that great and the movie's little better. The central premise to this one is quite chilling, with the abduction of the daughter and being buried in a grave that requires a man and wife to find her, means we get some incredibly wonderful Gothic atmosphere with the scenes in the cemetery that are quite creepy in design and chilling in how the story's built up. These scenes here and their bantering about where she is and where to dig are really the only parts of this that's worthwhile, as the rest of the time it doesn't have a whole lot to really get interested in. As it goes around with all the potential suspects and why they're interested in seeking revenge, the flashback nature of these participants and why they're out for revenge is not in the slightest bit interesting and drags the movie to a halt as it goes about this section of the movie, dropping all potential horror angles and does so for the majority of the film's running time. Even more so, the fact that the central premise doesn't allow for a lot of time dealing with the graveyard search forces this upon the viewer, a rather unfortunate handicap right off the top. It's got its moments, but not a whole lot of them.

Today's Rating: Unrated/PG: Mild Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

"Macabre" definitely wasn't the legendary director William Castle's most successful horror accomplishment, as this honor probably goes to either "House on Haunted Hill", "The Tingler" or "13 Ghosts". "Macabre" also wasn't Castle's coolest or most entertaining horror accomplishment, because according to yours truly that special title either goes to "Homicidal", "Mr. Sardonicus" or "Strait-Jacket". But one thing's for sure, namely that "Macabre" was Castle's very first horror flick AND the first time he tried out a nifty little gimmick, which would later become his trademark and his ultimate formula to fame & success. The gimmick here included that all spectators received a special type of insurance against "death by fright" and that a stern voice-over warns about the shocking impact of the film. It's all rather silly and cheesy by today's standards, but Castle's gimmicks quickly proved to be highly effective and he still remains one of the most imitated horror directors now, nearly forty years after his death. "Macabre" itself is extremely simplistic and low- budgeted, like all of William Castle's movies, but the plot is quite compelling and several sequences are drenched in an atmosphere that is … well … macabre! Small town doctor Rodney Barrett is confronted with the ultimate nightmare when he learns that his innocent 5-year- old daughter Marge has been kidnapped and lies buried alive somewhere with only five hours left to live. The doctor, along with his secretary and fragile old father-in-law, starts a frantic search for his little girl at the most obvious location – the local cemetery – but where to dig and who to trust? After all, the good doctor seemingly has quite a few enemies in town, including the rancorous Sheriff Tyloe, and (redundant) flashbacks show that he wasn't very kind to his deceased blind wife Alice. The race-against the clock aspect results in a handful of tense moments and most of all the scenes set at the fog-enshrouded graveyard at night are genuine horror highlights. The flashbacks and some of the plot- twists near the end are pretty dumb and merely raise the impression that William Castle only wanted to stretch the running time a bit, while other sequences (like for example the phone call from the kidnapper and nurse Polly's subsequent report to the doctor) are laughably inept. But who cares, as "Macabre" is a terrific piece of 50s horror and marked the start of the career of one of the most creative minds in cinema history.

***SPOILERS*** First of the William Castle shock horror films that the audience had to be warned beforehand that they may well not live to see the end of the film and sign a disclaimer! So that their immediate family members can't sue the filmmakers for having them drop dead while watching it. The movie "Macabre" ended up being one of if not the biggest the biggest sleeper of the year in making over 50 times as much money in the box-office then what it cost to make it.

The film has to do with town doctor Rodney Barrett, William Prince, having had his 12 year old daughter Marge, Linda Guderman, kidnapped and buried alive with just enough air in her coffin to keep her breathing for about five hours. During that time Dr. Barrett and his secretary Polly Baron, Jackie Scott, try desperately to find Marge in the town cemetery before she suffocates to death. There are a number of clues as well as red herrings to what's really going on in the movie that has the audience riveted to their seats expecting the worst for little Marge who's time and air is quickly running out.

***SPOILERS*** In the end the whole rotten and sinister truth comes out to what's really going on in the movie that comes to light at the cemetery where Marge is supposed to be buried. A truth so shocking as well as evil that I'm not surprised that Castle had to take out insurance, from Loyds of London, in order to protect himself more then anyone else. Not from members of the audience dropping dead from heart attacks while watching the movie. But from Castel being attacked beaten and possibly lynched by an outraged public or movie audience for him making them suffer in watching the film!

For whatever reason, "B" movie film-maker (of mainly epic, Western and noir fare) Castle changed pace here with a horror outing, whose box-office performance encouraged him to largely stick to this genre thereafter – aided, to a considerable degree, by the showman-like gimmicks which accompanied most of them (in this case, it was insurance against death-by-fright)! Anyway, being the first of its kind, one can perhaps excuse its essential naivete': for one thing, it is not the least bit scary, though the plot of a race-against-time to literally unearth a missing child seemed intriguing enough…

The film – watched via a Czech TV screening sporting obtrusive subtitles in that language, not to mention an excessively hiss-laden soundtrack! – evokes the small-town atmosphere so redolent of its ilk, where skeletons in the closet abound (usually relating to an eminent family) and people bear a grudge (often of a romantic kind) which naturally spells disaster before long. So far, so good: only the narrative does not sufficiently engage the viewer – much less elicit sympathy for its myriad characters – throughout! Indeed, it is rendered even more awkward by being padded (despite being a mere 68 minutes in length!) with flashbacks that seem to make no real point other than to expose the sordid details of some of the main character's personal lives. Acting, too, leaves a lot to be desired – with perhaps the major culprits being the patriarch, always on the verge of expiring from a cardiac arrest, and the leading lady, who melodramatically faints while listening to a purportedly maniacal phone-call (only very briefly heard via a recording at the climax) and is then made to clumsily describe it to the hero! Indeed, the most notable – and effective – cast member is Jim Backus, who gets to physically assault the male protagonist following the death at childbirth of the latter's wife (a doctor, he had preferred spending time with his girlfriend rather than see to his marital and professional duties!) and the former's own ex-flame.

In the end, the movie deserves its pride of place as a trend-setter (the villain's identity, at least, proves audacious if hardly sensible), which the director invariably improved upon in subsequent forays down the path of ghoulish chills – a number of which I will be checking out presently on the occasion of his centenary…

I missed seeing Macabre back when I was a lad, but you would have to have been behind the Iron Curtain to miss all the hype and promotion that director William Castle used to promote this thing. At the age of 71 when I have more reason to be concerned with my cardiac functions I'm here to tell you I got not a flutter watching Macabre.

The small town doctor William Prince and the small town sheriff Jim Backus have little liking for each other, but when Prince's daughter is kidnapped and he's given 5 hours to find her because she's buried alive with only so much air.

After that the film gets weird and strange. If that's your taste go for it. When you add dull I don't think it's anybody's taste.

I caught this randomly of TCM. I was thinking of turning off the television set when suddenly I saw William Castle's name and got intrigued. I have previously seen 'The House on Haunted Hill' and I think it's a pretty great, genuinely CLASSIC horror film, and overall I have found Castle's career to be extremely compelling and kind of funny in a way. Castle was a filmmaker who grew to be iconic largely b/c of his gimmicks, which perfectly encapsulate the atmosphere of horror cinema at this time in filmmaking history ("this time" referring to the 1950's to the mid-1960's), and I was totally hooked on watching this film once it began, w/a shot of a large clock on a clock tower as a narration informs the viewer that over the course of the next hour and fifteen minutes prepare to be horrified or something along those lines, and amusingly suggesting that I, the viewer, calm whoever I am sitting beside in the theater if they get too visibly scared and that, and I just found this hilarious and felt like I was in for a comedic (if only ironically so) treat. Well, what I got was something quite unexpected and different than what my mind had planned. There were quite a few unintentionally amusing moments here and there, but the overall film was super dark. Like, it tackled some extremely disturbing topics in a really weird and eerie (if oft cheesy) way. I don't exactly know how I feel about this film, beyond knowing that I liked it, despite there being various extreme plot holes and the overall fact of its ending (which that same narrator from the beginning urges his audience to not spoil any of there friends, and to tell said friends to go see the picture for themselves, which I also found pretty funny) being less-than-satisfactory if (at least sort/kind of) unique/interesting/unexpected/fittingly-melancholic-in-a-way. Sometimes, watching films at total random can be a real experience, and this certainly was one. Full of surprises, unintentional laughs, genuine moments of shock and near actual fright...it's a time to be had for sure.

William Castle, the Sultan of Schlock, proudly presents a movie so horrifying that you might want to take out life insurance before watching! The young daughter of a man with enemies disappears and a mysterious caller reveals that the girl is buried alive with only enough air for five hours. The frantic search begins, the clock on the funeral parlour marks the passing time, and everyone is a suspect. I lived through the movie but, as requested by Castle himself (in a brief voiceover epilogue), won't reveal the ending. If you don't think about it too hard the plot is interesting (although the climatic revelation generates as many questions as it answers), there are some effective scenes as people desperately search for the girl in the creepy local cemetery, and some of the characters quite intriguing (notably, the fast-living blind girl). Stick around for the amusing credit sequence (including typos).

Macabre tells the tale of a small town doctor who gets a cryptic message telling him his small daughter has been kidnapped and buried alive. He has to find her before time (and her air!) runs out.

William Castle started as he meant to go on, with a low budget, yes, but also with the ability to direct and photograph what counts: tight dramatic scenes, stark lighting and shock effects. I am sure the audiences loved this when it first came out. It's pretty short and actually quite low on action, even tough it's central idea (death of a child by suffocation in a coffin) is quite nasty.

The acting is variable. Jacqueline Scott overacts rather as love-lorn nurse Polly, whereas William Prince tends to keep things fairly wooden as the tormented doctor. They are better supported by the rest of the cast, who all do great work, especially Ellen Corby who I love as the child's elderly nursemaid. Castle always seems to get quality actors for the small parts in his movies, even if the leads can be a bit flakey.

There's lots of acton set in a graveyard as the cast equip themselves with spades and torches to search for the missing child, and in a nice touch the film only covers a period of about 5 hours in time (a clock reminds of of this), although two fairly long flashback fill in some details of past intrigues. The film only really boats a handful of shocks, the notable one being some hilariously gruesome remains found inside a coffin, and a dead body found suddenly in a dark corner. Short enough and silly enough to be entertaining, it shows that William Castle knows how to make a movie.

Legendary producer/director/showman William Castle's first gimmick movie. The gimmick here was that moviegoers were given insurance policies when they entered the theater to see this picture. Because they might be frightened to death, you see. Cute stuff. This isn't scary in the least, though, even by the standards of the day. The story's about a doctor racing against time to rescue his young daughter after he is told she's been buried alive.

The cast is fine although Jacqueline Scott (in her film debut) is a little over the top for my tastes. Christine White is good in flashback scenes ("All men seem alike in the dark"). The scene implying she wants an abortion is pretty taboo stuff for 1958, even if the word itself is never uttered. On a superficial note, she has some really nice hips. Castle's direction is adequate. There's some decent atmosphere in the graveyard scenes but not much tension, due in part to the cutaways for flashbacks. Having seen many of Castle's other movies before this one, I think I expected this to be something more....well, macabre. It's not a horror movie and, although there are murders, there aren't any of the gruesome shocks that Castle's later movies would be famous for. Although I suppose one shot towards the end was supposed to be like that. It wasn't very impressive, though. This does feature another Castle staple besides the gimmick -- the twist ending. This part I found to be the most satisfying (if admittedly ludicrous) part of the movie. It's not going to become one of my favorite Castle movies anytime soon but it is interesting enough to recommend. The short runtime is a plus.

I'm always intrigued by these gimmick movies and am long past the point of feeling disappointed if the gimmick doesn't deliver. In this film's case, the opening narration advises the viewer with a warning for your personal welfare as the events one is about to see are so shocking. And when it's over, don't tell your neighbor what your saw, because what the heck, we want to get his movie ticket money too.

In retrospect, one wonders how old Doc Barrett (William Prince) expected to get away with the kidnapping scam involving his own daughter. All one needed to do was crack the undertaker Quigley (Jonathan Kidd), and that didn't take very much when push came to shove near the finale. Told utilizing a couple of flashback scenes, the story does manage to build a bit of suspense, but in attempting a resolution, the effort results in some genuine hilarity. I especially got a kick out of old Wetherby (Philip Tonge) doing the Redd Foxx heart attack gimmick to hilarious effect, practically crawling into his daughter's grave at the midnight funeral ceremony.

With my best recollection of Jim Backus as the voice of Mr. Magoo and playing the fabulously wealthy Thurston Howell on 'Gilligan's Island, it was somewhat distracting to see him here as the creepy Sheriff Tyloe. Even more stunning was seeing his sometimes gal pal Nancy Wetherby (Christine White) tooling along the highway while totally blind! OK, she had someone alongside to help guide the car, but that seemed just a bit daring, don't you think?

The best scenes in the picture had to do with the graveyard hunt when the Doc and his assistant Polly (Jacqueline Scott) try to locate the place where the mysterious voice on the phone suggested the doctor's young daughter was buried. The fog enshrouded set and spooky atmosphere was about as good as 1941's "The Wolf Man", and if the film makers had thought of it, they might have used his help to knock off Wetherby a bit sooner. Who knows, Barrett might even have gotten away with it.

Odd and ordinary seems a contradiction but it could explain the feeling of this first William Castle "gimmick" movie.

It is odd in plot and that is mostly because it is somewhat confusing, but is also odd because the audience spends the whole film with the idea that a little girl has been buried alive and only has a few hours to live. That is truly almost subliminal horror.

The on screen shocks are few but effective and the atmosphere is low budget slick. The ordinary comes from the overall movie presentation of talky and uninteresting characters. It is historically a worthwhile effort just don't expect a horror movie and maybe it will play better.

More of a thriller, it does have an ending that is both bizarre and once it is over you will find yourself going back over the movie in your head to try and put it all together. It's hardly worth the effort, but if this little sleeper can have the audience playing mental gymnastics it could be called successful and it was and it sent Castle on a long and winding road of better and more entertaining movies that became pop culture legends and baby boomer terror teething's.

Like many teens of the time, I was pulled in by the heavy-handed ad blitz on TV. Needless to say, once past the ticket-taker, my pulse never lapsed once, so their insurance policy was safe by me. I recall having trouble following the many plot complications then, and still do. But the narrative is not the movie's strong point, anyway—something about an unpopular doctor having only a few hours to save his daughter from being buried alive. Meanwhile all these people keep dropping in and out in none too cogent fashion. Had the narrative developed the characters more distinctly, the whodunit part could have excelled.

Nonetheless, director Castle shows he's still got the visual style he had in the classic 1940's noir series The Whistler. So there're a number of creepy visual set-ups that help redeem the title. The ending is still a grabber that I didn't see coming even if I couldn't quite figure out the logic. Anyway, with more work on the screenplay, this could have been something memorable instead of the okay thriller it is. I'm just sorry Castle traded his very real talents to become the 50's premier huckster of movie gimmickry.

"Macabre" is the first entry in William Castle's cycle of horror films and it isn't bad; it's better than "13 Ghosts" but not as good as "I Saw What You Did" and nowhere near as intense as "The Tingler." A lot of the right elements are in place for a good thrill; the photography is excellent, there is plenty of claustrophobic atmosphere and the first two thirds of it is completely credible, though as a kind of detective picture rather than horror. One has to accept the fact that Dr. Barrett is a lousy detective, and that even though there is the frantic search for the missing girl, with the clock ticking, it has to be set aside periodically to allow for other plot points to go by; maddening. But ultimately Castle takes the easy way out when just a little more effort would have made "Macabre" a great film. And judging from some of his other work, Castle had it in him, it's just that at a certain point the film begins to undermine its own potential with ludicrousness. Christine White is marvelously sexy as a blind girl with a taste for adventure, and it's fun to see Jim Backus in a role as a heavy, speaking in his natural voice. Ellen Corby is stronger than the part that she is given, which could have been more consequential if she hadn't been awarded such a limited and repetitive repertoire of lines to say. "Macabre" isn't successful at all at passing the blame for its caper on individuals not involved in the situation, and that's fine; the confusion about where the girl is, who might have taken her, and why is enough to instill a kind of unsettled confusion that sets the right mood. It's definitely worthwhile as a kind of period piece as it works towards its Cold War-ish conclusion, but one wonders how well it would play if Ingmar Bergman had taken a look at the script, and it wouldn't have taken a lot to bring it up to that level; "Macabre" just falls short.

So far, this is the best Castle film that I have seen; I personally think it is quite a bit better, more believable, and way more involving then any of his other films (well, the one with Joan Crawford was pretty dang good!)

Also, without giving too much away, the ending caught me completely off guard too. The DVD print is frigg'n AMAZING! I thought it was a Blu-ray it looked so sharp and detailed. At first, the dialog seemed a little clumpy and stiff, but as you get into the story and begin to understand the relationships and history between the characters, it starts to smooth out a little.

Another thing that surprised me was the 'adult' nature of some of the story content. Not anything visual; nothing like that, but some of the situations that the characters got into were rather sordid and seedy for 1958 I would think! Probably the weakest point of the film is the acting and to a lesser degree the script; again a bit stiff. But, interestingly as you get more and more into the story and the search for the little girl, you DO indeed get drawn into and become more involved in what is going on.

This movie is of course not of the FILM NOIR genre, which ended just about the time this movie came out. But, the dark edge that many of the characters have and some of the shadowy photography reminded me somewhat of the genre. Primarily the flashback sequences and the morally dubious tone of a lot of the people. There are some similarities to films in the latter NOIR period.

Anyway, not that I am really an expert on William Castle or anything, but so far amongst his films that I have seen, I feel that this one is far and away the more serious and classier of them. I know that many feel that 'THE TINGLER' and 'HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL' are Classics, but personally I found the acting and dialog in them quite sub-par compared to this one...

So, if you are in the mood for an older Suspense / Mystery Thriller with a dark NOIR edge and can put up with a little stiff acting (and NO, I do not mean this is a porn film...) and if you would like to see what a Castle film is like BEFORE he started introducing all the heavy CHEEEEEEEZ, then you should find it quite entertaining...