"It's always good to know that."
Well, that was very good indeed, and not at all what you'd expect from what on the surface of what looks like a typical late 1950s low budget horror flick which does, after all, star Vincent Price at his camp best. Instead we get a fourth wall-breaking, immaculately plotted (well, there are a few holes on reflection bt let us not be churlish: how did Annabelle and Trent know that Loren would hand out guns?) and, above all, gloriously witty.
This is, in the end, a murder mystery without any supernatural elements. Well, other than the heightened sense of reality, but it just about manages to skirt the line. In the Lorens we have one of cinema's most gloriously acidic couples, appropriate considering where one of them ends up, with each cheerfully wanting to murder the other. There's what looks like an unpleasant note of feminine hysteria in the treatment of Nora but this is partly explained. This is far from the square-jawed 1950s Hollywood I'm used to seeing.
Most refreshingly surprising, though, is the witty fourth-wall breaking and the cheerful use of haunted house tropes throughout to heighten the atmosphere and drama. A gloriously fun way to wind down of a Tuesday evening and the best Vincent Price performance I've seen to date.
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