Catacombs (1964)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I did not see this film when it went on release nor can I ever remember seeing it on TV.So this was the first time I had seen this.Whilst no great classic it is still a very effective thriller.Gary Merrill plays a bought husband under the thumb of his rich domineering wife.A young niece returns and soon falls in love with Merrill.His wife has a crooked Secretary.Between the both of them they hatch a plot to murder her.However Merrill murders her before the planned time which complicates matters.He buries her in a shed.However when he and the niece spend time in the house they are haunted by the dead wife.There are a number of twists before everyone concerned are brought to justice.

Gary Merrill plays the husband of a rich woman (Georgina Cookson), who apparently keeps him around for hot sex. She can also put herself into trances, which is probably how she gets through the sex with Merrill. Cookson's gorgeous niece (Jane Merrow) shows up, and Merrill decides he wants to get it on with her. Merrill and his business partner cook up a scheme to off Cookson. After Merrill does the deed, he buries his wife in the pottery shed. Then they hire an actress to impersonate Cookson, so everyone else will think she went to Italy. Then the actress is offed as well. With Merrill and Merrow alone in his dead wife's house, strange events start occurring. Is it Cookson, back from the dead? Is she not really dead? Is someone playing a trick? The film works, despite the weird casting. It would have worked better with someone younger (and better looking) than Merrill. No one on the planet should believe a babe like Jane Merrow would go for this guy. He is in serious need of some eyebrow trimming, which would at least diminish his Cro-Magnon looks. And Cookson looks like John "One Step Beyond" Newland in a dress and wig. Merrow is worth watching, of course.

It is the first movie directed by the guy who was later guilty of SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN and also THE OBLONG BOX, both starring the fantastic, awesome Vincent Price. The one is a terror movie, but also with a bit of mystery and crime. It reminds us Henri Georges Clouzot's LES DIABOLIQUES plot. A man - Gary Merrill - and his friend plan the murder of Merril's wife, but things do not work as they intend...Twists, twists and twists again, that may also make you think of Alfred Hitchcock Presents' kind of topics. I also thought of Seth Holt's SCREAM OF FEAR, although I am not sure that the plot is exactly the same. I'll check in my vault, among the huge quantity of films I have. Anyways, I am pretty satisfied with this film I searched since a long time.

1964's "Catacombs" was the debut feature from Hitchcock disciple Gordon Hessler, shot in England like most of his subsequent films, and importing American actor Gary Merrill, a frequent guest star on both Hitchcock teleseries, to assure distribution in the US under new title "The Woman Who Wouldn't Die." Scriptwise, an extension of a typical Hitchcockian TV plot, as astute businesswoman Ellen Garth (Georgina Cookson) holds all the purse strings over her weak-willed husband Raymond (Merrill), to whom she is completely devoted. Despite a bad hip that requires the use of a cane, Ellen has a very active sexual relationship with her husband, who doesn't mind being dominated since she continuously dotes on him with her money. Problems arise when Ellen's young niece, Alice Taylor (Jane Merrow), arrives home from art school in Paris, showing a recently developed, somewhat unorthodox, attraction to her all-too-willing uncle, until after the pair are caught in a tender embrace by her insightful aunt, who threatens to disown her faithless husband if he doesn't abide by her rules. When Ellen makes plans to spend a week alone in Italy, her unscrupulous attorney, Richard Corbett (Neil McCallum), who has a prison record and has been caught forging her name on his checks, conspires with Raymond to make sure she has an unfortunate 'accident' due to her notoriously poor driving skills. Unfortunately, Raymond cannot resist the opportunity to drown his wife in her bathroom sink, burying the corpse behind their isolated country cottage, left to him in her will provided he spend the rest of his life there. Corbett carries out his part in the plot by hiring an actress to portray Ellen, seen leaving England by plane, then cold-bloodedly dispatching her on the continent. Raymond gets no time to relax however; he remembers that Ellen believed in life after death, and there are signs that she is not content to remain in her grave. Hessler works wonders with a routine script, and is aided by good performances from the tiny cast of seven players. Actor Neil McCallum, Irish accent intact, later played opposite Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in 1964's "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors," and died in 1976 at the youthful age of 47. "Catacombs" was completed in November 1963, co-produced by McCallum and Jack Parsons, whose next production in January 1964 would be the underrated "Witchcraft," importing American star Lon Chaney in his only British film.