Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

bkoganbing The cheapness of the production and the fact that for some reason some very good players seem to be sleepwalking through their roles prevents me from rating Pillow Of Death higher. It was the end of Universal's Inner Sanctum series and maybe they just wanted to get it over with.A whole family named Kincaid is being systematically murdered. As they are a rich bunch it looks like someone is trying to collect a big inheritance. The cast is dotted with players who do villainous roles so it could be any one of them.Of course this film quite obviously borrows from the classic Agatha Christie mystery Ten Little Indians. Only they're not on an isolated island and law enforcement is trying to figure it out before all the Kincaids end up in the morgue.The most interesting member of the cast is the soon to be blacklisted J. Edward Bromberg playing a psychic hired by one of the family members to contact the deceased Kincaids so they can find out who's behind all these killings. They're all smothered to death with a pillow, hence the title.I think it was obvious who it was myself.

Rainey Dawn This is super good whodunit for those who have not seen it. The film will keep you changing your mind on who you think the murderer is up until the very end. If you like trying to solve a mystery then you might like this film. It has some cute moments and leaves you in suspense for most all of the movie.Someone killed Wayne Fletcher's (Lon Chaney Jr) wife - but who and why? Wayne is in love with Donna Kincaid (Brenda Joyce) she is in love with him. Bruce Malone (Bernard Thomas) is in love with Donna but Donna only likes him as her friend. So you have a strange love triangle going on in the film.Donna comes from a family with money. Her family has hired a medium Julian Julian to find the ghost in their home. Ironically, Wayne's wife was talking to the same medium before her death.Between the money, love triangle and the spirits in the home this sets up a strange but good whodunit story that is quite fun to watch.9/10

dougdoepke Reviewers really disagree on the merits of this final Inner Sanctum entry. To me, it's the most fun of the six, although I think the first entry Calling Dr. Death (1943) is the most imaginative and comes closest to what the series was trying to achieve in the realm of psychological horror.What lifts this 60-minutes are several droll performances, a great Gothic set (no doubt left over from an A-production), and a pretty good whodunit that kept me guessing. George Cleveland's crusty old man remains a real hoot, and a role he appears to be really enjoying. Note too cop Winton Graff's subtly droll reactions to Cleveland's scrappy character. Too bad they don't have more scenes together. Then there're the two sourpuss old women. I especially like Rosalind Ivan's ditzy old gal with her subtle tongue-in-cheek. (At the same time, i also can't help noticing the rather woeful Bernard Thomas as the young neighbor, demonstrating again how the war had depleted Hollywood's ranks of young male talent.)And check out that elaborate Gothic set, so richly appointed that it adds needed spooky atmosphere. Speaking of atmosphere, the lighting bill must have come to all of five dollars. Come to think of it-- I wonder if the cast kept bumping into each other. Also, I certainly didn't anticipate the solution to the whodunit. Cleverly, it doesn't follow stereotype. No, there's nothing memorable here, but this series programmer is more subtly amusing than most and better than the series norm, at least, in my view.

MartinHafer On video, this film is part of a two film set of Inner Sanctum mysteries--the other being the more interesting DEAD MAN'S EYES.PILLOW OF DEATH is a "B-movie"--a shorter film with a lower budget that is meant as the second film at a double-feature. In most cases, people came to the theater to see the "A-picture" and the B-movie was more like an added bonus. Most B-films are definitely on the cheap side and have pretty anemic budgets, though occasionally one rises above these lower expectations. While most of this film is purely average and not particularly noteworthy for the genre, the film definitely ends very well as a murder mystery--catching me by surprise by who the real murderer was. So, for lovers of mystery and suspense, this film is well worth seeing, though others might be a bit unimpressed by the overall product. Not bad at all, but far from great or memorable.