The Comedy of Terrors

Humor is not only subjective, but I'd be willing to bet it isn't even consistent from a subjective viewpoint. Can I explain why I love Monty Python's sense of absurdity and surreality, but Kids In The Hall annoy me? Or why I like the moronic humor of Hot Tub Time Machine and Beavis & Butt-head, but South Park grates on me? I cannot. I was never a Scooby-Doo fan. I found its slide-whistle and mouth-harp-driven slapstick and pun-heavy humor corny and hacky, even as a kid. So can I explain why this movie, which relies on much the same kind of humor, made me smile and even chuckle on several occasions? I cannot, but I have a theory: the performers. You have Bela Lugosi playing a daft, deaf old man. Peter Lorre playing the weird sidekick to the main person, who has a heart of gold but is also reluctantly willing to please his master. Basil Rathbone as a landlord that simply and comedically will not die, and also will not stop talking in lines from Shakespeare plays. And Vincent Price, playing a loquacious drunk that is willing to kill people to keep his undertaking business from going under. The performances, especially somewhat against type, are the secret to the sauce here, I think. Price getting steadily drunker, his verbose vocabulary going from pretentious to common, as he devolves from an erudite if desperate man to a degenerate slob by the end, yet somehow being the straight man the entire time. That's not to take away from the rest of the cast, though, as Lorre is great as the beleaguered sidekick, gradually growing to hate Price but has a hard time showing the courage to break away and take what he wants (Price's wife, whom Price hates and the feeling is mutual). Rathbone, too, is excellent, just for the every-growing absurdity of the ways in which he keeps not dying and coming back and spouting off speeches that rarely tie into the moment. It's certainly not for everyone. The humor is definitely cornball, and for how sinister the premise sounds, the comedy is definitely the prime ingredient here. This is horror-adjacent, but about three doors over and two floors down. There is nothing here that I wouldn't show to an 8 year old, and even then, it may just not clock with you. It's as lightweight as a feather. But it's also never trying to be anything more than that. It's a whimsical, silly little movie, fun for a Saturday morning, or a spooky season watch with kids who might be a little too young yet for Ghostbusters or Beetlejuice. But if you can tap into that young sense of humor, you might find it a fun way to spend 90 minutes.