Director Daniel Haller began his career as an art director for Roger Corman. He worked on all the early Edgar Allan Poe pictures and after the success of THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), was later given his chance to direct on another adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft story. H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a writer who came into his own in the 1960s with the republication of many of his horror stories which were turned into a series of films by American International Pictures and a number of episodes of Rod Serling’s NIGHT GALLERY. The story chosen, THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE one of Lovecraft’s best, became DIE, MONSTER, DIE! in 1965. Despite the blatant drive-in title, the film contains one of Boris Karloff’s best late career performances. It was shot in England and had the services of the ill-fated Nick Adams (his early death resembled Heath Ledger’s) along with a solid British cast including Freda Jackson and Patrick Magee.
An American science student (Adams) goes to visit his British girlfriend at her family’s ancestral estate in the small English town of Arkham. Upon his arrival, he is shunned by the locals who refuse to give him directions to the estate. While walking there he notices a huge burned area where everything crumbles to ash. Once at the house, he is greeted by a hostile Karloff who tells him to leave immediately. The girlfriend, Karloff’s daughter, greets him and asks him to talk to her mother (Jackson) who stays hidden behind a veiled bed. Later a figure in black tries to attack him but is driven away. He notices a strange green glow from the estate’s greenhouse and discovers, once inside, several giant plants and mutated animals. Could the pulsating meteorite inside be responsible? What does Karloff have to do with it? Later the mother goes mad before dying and Karloff himself becomes transformed into a glowing being setting off a fiery finale which destroys everything. The young lovers escape safely.
Paul Beeson’s outdoor photography is impressive and art director Colin Southcott’s overstuffed interiors are interesting but familiar. Jerry Sohl’s script is the movie’s weakest link with substandard TV style dialogue and several plot elements unexplained or unresolved (possibly the result of post-production tampering). The first half is wonderfully atmospheric and reminded me of the HARRY POTTER pictures. The second half focuses on the various subplots before featuring the standard B movie sudden ending (taken from Karloff’s 1936 THE INVISIBLE RAY) and is less satisfactory. Daniel Haller’s direction is not bad but he recycles lots of elements from the Poe pictures and even throws in borrowings from 2 British sci-fi films, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955) and KONGA (1959). Overall the movie is quite a hodgepodge but is worth seeing for Karloff and Jackson along with some intriguing visuals.
The Capsule Critic 