Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . DIE, MONSTER, DIE! Set in one of the quaintest vermillion oases of the Emerald Isle--Arkham--DIE, MONSTER, DIE! centers around naïve American "Stephen Reinhart's" first opportunity to visit the verdant homeland of his sweetie, and to meet her parents. Steve arrives just in the nick of time, as his Irish lass is a total orphan by the time he leaves a couple days later (due in no small part to the brace of battle axes Steve chucks at her Pop's noggin!). It turns out that the pot at the end of Ireland's rainbow is green--NOT gold--and Steve's hosts are living smack dab atop it. Thanks to this translucent chartreuse Ground Zero, everything grows greater and greener in Ireland. Of course, certain small sacrifices must be made within the family units, but this sort of thing has been the lot of the Irish since "Johnny Swift" reported on their substituting babes for taters during the Great Potato Famine of the 1700s. On the other hand, the famed "Luck of the Irish" plays out in spades during DIE, MONSTER, DIE!, at least for the local grave diggers.

moonmonday It's kind of amazing to watch this, with or without previous knowledge of Lovecraft's story upon which it was based. It has an engaging start, but also an irritating one, and it spends too much time of its similarly too-long running time poking about needlessly. Character motivations switch instantly and arbitrarily, sometimes from one scene to the very next. The script is all over the place, and because of this it doesn't manage to give the viewer anyone to really sympathise with or care about.Witley, Karloff's character, is hostile and needlessly secretive, and in fact attracts more questions than he would if he were more charming and less desperate. Stephen, the supposed 'hero' of the piece, is uselessly assertive -- he only insists when it's either too late or it means nothing. And the 'heroine', Susan, should change her surname to 'Witless', because that's about all there is to say about her character. She's utterly worthless and stupid, even practically throwing herself into mild danger to be rescued. Unfortunately, Stephen is almost as bad, forgetting his intent to leave in the very next scene after resolving to, now for some reason determined that no questions remain unanswered...and then of course, there's the scene where he nearly hurls an axe into Susan's head! All things considered, she probably would have been okay. Seriously, this woman had a *plant* sneak up on her.There are some very good parts, though: the mysterious Helga, the horrifying monstrosities in the greenhouse, and the strange scorch mark left in Merwyn's room. The final menace, while a bit silly, was at least striking. But it's too uneven and too scattered to be suspenseful or exciting, and it just manages to feel more perfunctory than anything else. It would have been far better to end it simply; the way it ended likewise brought up so many more questions than it needed to, and there was both little stake in the futures of any of the surviving characters and little explanation as to how they intended to go from there.It's suitably off-putting that the villagers are so reticent and hostile, but at the same time it also doesn't really make sense. True, ignorance and prejudice are rarely logical, but being so aggressive to someone who doesn't know and not even being willing to speak of it? What did they believe would occur if they just told him up-front what had happened, as far as they knew it? And for that matter, how long had it been since that happened in the first place? There's really not a sense of time in the film, much less a scale of time having passed. The doctor says he hasn't been working for some time, which is confirmed by his assistant; how would Susan not have known about any of this?Some last points: never, ever use that epitaph for any tombstone; a man who cannot stand on his own is unlikely to be able to dig and fill a grave without assistance; after Merwyn collapses, meals are never again mentioned and none of the characters seem to eat for the rest of the film; the greenhouse is not attached to the main house and the door was left open; OF COURSE IT CAME FROM SPACE. And those are just a few of the most obvious points to make.This is the kind of film that you could watch to pass time on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but don't watch it expecting to be riveted or excited, or least of all frightened. Karloff's charm and natural charisma are really all that manage to keep this watchable, and it is a testament to his ability. Unfortunately the rest of the film is just not up to par, with a disorganised script, unlikable characters, uneven performances, and no real suspense at all. It's a pity, because one can see the elements of a good film in there...they just didn't come together here. Also, The House at the End of the World is a far superior title to the insane Die, Monster, Die! A more accurate title along those lines would be Die, Mother, Die!.

TheLittleSongbird A film based off the work of HP Lovecraft and starring Boris Karloff showed promise already, even before watching. Die, Monster, Die! doesn't quite live up to that, but despite having a lot of problems it is still a fun and decent film. Apart from Boris Karloff and to a lesser extent the lovely Suzan Farmer, the acting is clunky with Nick Adams in particular looking as if he's sleepwalking through everything. The special effects and make-up are cheap and look more silly than scary, while the script can get muddled, the pacing is a little pedestrian at times and the ending is rushed and somewhat hard to swallow. Aside from the special effects, Die, Monster, Die! is still a good-looking film, the Gothic sets are both atmospheric and handsome and it's very beautifully photographed. The lighting adds to the mood, and the costumes likewise. The music score is appropriately haunting without bogging things down, and the atmosphere and resolutely creepy and chilling. Daniel Haller's generally solid direction is to thank for that, and the story is fun and atmospheric, if let down by the last half-hour or so where things get too silly. Karloff is wonderful, one of those actors who was nearly always able to redeem a film regardless of their quality(he's the best thing about those god-awful Mexican films that he made at the end of his career), even when he's in a wheel-chair he still shows a great deal of energy and charisma. Farmer is lovely and not too bland. Overall, flawed but fun and creepy, and even if he's been and done better Karloff does not disappoint. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Andrew Huggett Weird, lurid and slightly bitty horror film about a radioactive meteor kept in a cellar by an old man haunted by his ancestors evil deeds and who believes the effects of the radioactive meteor are a curse upon his family caused by the (devil worship?) carried out there in the past (although none of this is very clear from the narrative structure of the film which tends to lurch awkwardly from one set of inexplicable situations to another). This film (like most of the H. P. Lovecraft film adaptations) does not quite gel together into a cohesive whole for me – although stylistically there's something about it I quite like. The production design and interiors are great (there's a fantastic dry-ice mist covered country house), a village full of characters who won't talk about the house or it's occupants, a couple of weird shroud covered mad women, a greenhouse full of giant animal and vegetable mutations, a killer vine plant, a strange manservant and to cap it all the wonderful melodious tones of a wheelchair-bound Boris Karloff (who moves around the house and grounds with surprising speed) and who when exposed directly to the radioactive meteor turns into a luminous silver skinned zombie with murderous intent. Enjoyable nonsense. Technically, the SD print I saw suffers from some corner lens distortion (caused by the anamorphic techniscope process?) and is slightly soft. If it is ever remastered in HD it would be worth seeing for the colourful sets, matt paintings and location work. The main titles look identical to the ones used on 'Daleks: Invasion of Earth 2150' made a year or so later.