Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Edgar Soberon Torchia I recently finished Peter Hutchings' book on Terence Fisher, where the author studies the work of the British filmmaker, and avoids forcing him into the boundaries of the auteur theory, concentrating on his skills for delivering effective motion pictures. Unfortunately he did not pay too much attention to this funny title in Fisher's filmography, which has suffered from quick, unfair evaluation probably based on the presence of singer Pat Boone as the American leading man who is trapped in the big, dark, old house of his British girlfriend's family. Surprisingly this is a far better movie than what I had read about, if admittedly of the "silly" almost infantile kind of comedy, and Boone proves to be a more than adequate comic actor. I even had a big (silly) laugh when Boone so unexpectedly started to sing the title song, which is more a cultural joke than the obligatory Boone song in all his movies. Conceived as part of a double bill with Don Sharp's horror drama "Witchcraft", there is nothing original about the plot of "The Horror of It All". At first it resembles Richard Matheson's adaptation of "The Fall of the House of Usher", but it is just the beginning: the screenplay by Ray Russell also takes elements from other horror films and comedies, from "Frankenstein" and "The Old Dark House", to Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost", frequently making little jokes about Boone's nationality. All the members of the cast seem to enjoy what they are doing, especially Andrée Melly as the resident vamp lady and Jack Bligh as Uncle Percy, an inventor completely out of his time... in reverse. Fisher was an efficient director and here he proves it once again, handling everything in an adequate manner and never pretending he was making anything grand. If as Terence Fisher you take it for what it is, "The Horror of It All" works just fine.

matthewmercy A long-unseen comedy-chiller from 1964, The Horror of It All holds the dubious distinction of being one of Hammer horror doyen Terence Fisher's most obscure movies; certainly, amongst the post-1957 filmography that contains all of his most famous and influential directorial credits, it is matched only by the dead-on-arrival, German-produced Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) in terms of all-round pointlessness. Both films, in fact, came at the midpoint in Fisher's run as British cinema's number one 'horror man', as after his initial run of trailblazing Gothic chillers that put Hammer on the international map, he appears to have been given a forced sabbatical from the fold following the box office failure of his weak-tea take on The Phantom of the Opera (1962); this resulted in him taking several 'director for hire' type assignments over the next few years, which he eventually started to slot in around his later Hammer efforts.The very least of a glut of horror spoofs that appeared on UK screens in the 1960s (amongst them the excellent What A Carve Up and the legendary Carry On Screaming), The Horror of It All stars American singer-actor Pat Boone as a dopey everyman who turns up at the country home of his girlfriend Erica Rogers (yes, I'm drawing a blank too) intent on proposing, only to find out that not only are her family a decidedly odd bunch, but there's likely to be a murder there before very much longer as well...Cheaply produced by Robert L. Lippert, whose stable would also be responsible for Fisher's The Earth Dies Screaming, this impoverished- looking quickie bears just about none of the classy hallmarks found in the director's better films. Certainly not at home with comedy, Fisher struggles to get anything at all funny out of the clichéd situations and very tired gags. The music (including a brief bit of singing by Boone in the middle of the picture) is nondescript, as are most of the supporting performances. The exceptions are reliable turns by Valentine Dyall and Dennis Price as two of the crackpot relatives; former alumni of the films of Powell and Pressburger, both actors would eventually slide much further down the movie industry totem pole than this, but that doesn't change the fact they are essentially wasted here.Though unsurprisingly unavailable on DVD or any other home format, I finally managed to view The Horror of It All after some helpful individual put it up on YouTube, apparently recorded from an obscure Spanish TV channel (thankfully subtitled rather than dubbed), so if you are enough of a fan of Fisher's to want to see this misfire, you may still find it there.

jfarms1956 The Horror Of It All is a movie that would appeal to those 14 and older who like B rated comedies and/or horror movies. The movie is too comedic to be a true horror movie and contains too much horror type things to be a comedy. It is neither fish nor fowl. The movie is in black and white I suppose to add to the horror features of the movie. It is probably best enjoyed on a rainy afternoon or late at night. I could almost see the movie being watched at a teenage slumber party since it will not give anybody any real gruesome nightmares. The musical background is over the top horror type music. However, the acting is almost comedic since it too is over the top horror type. Popcorn all around here.

moonspinner55 American encyclopedia salesman working in England pays a surprise visit to his fiancée, who lives with her uncle and assorted relatives in an eerie countryside estate. Retread of "The Old Dark House" given curiously jaunty undermining, but these eccentric spooks are not very funny and one simply longs for the central character to get away. Pat Boone has the lead, and he does very well pretending to be interested in this ridiculous scenario; his intended is a colorless bird, and her family would certainly cause any sane person to head for the hills, but Boone proves to be quite capable here (he might have grown even more as an actor if Fox had given him some half-way decent roles). Talky, low-budget second-feature with flimsy-looking sets tries for a light touch but doesn't have the goods to keep it afloat. * from ****