A young couple buys a colonial inn only to discover its previous owner is still conducting strange experiments in the basement.
Winnie Slade (Jeff Donnell) and her new husband Bill Leyden (Larry Parks) believe they have found the perfect fixer-upper: a historic hotel in rural New England. They purchase the property from the eccentric Professor Nathaniel Billings (Boris Karloff), who neglects to mention that his laboratory is still active in the cellar. When the couple discovers a collection of corpses on the premises, they call in the local law, Sheriff Dr. Lorenz (Peter Lorre), whose own peculiarities only add to the mounting chaos.
This picture functions as a broad parody of the mad-scientist horror films that made Boris Karloff a household name. The comedy is built on the juxtaposition of macabre situations with the frantic reactions of the increasingly bewildered young couple. By casting both Karloff and Peter Lorre, the film plays with their established screen images, placing them in a farcical context that satirizes the very genre they helped define. The film’s marketing leaned into this blend of tones, billing it as a “gay chiller diller.”
Production Co: Columbia / 82 minutes / 1944
Director: Lew Landers
Screenplay: Edwin Blum, Paul Gangelin
Main Cast: Boris Karloff (Prof. Nathaniel Billings), Peter Lorre (Dr. Arthur Lorencz), Maxie Rosenbloom (Maxie), Larry Parks (Bill Layden), Jeff Donnell (Winnie Slade)
