The Comedy Of Terrors

With the tagline YOUR FAVORITE CREEPS TOGETHER AGAIN and a killer quartet consisting of genre icons Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff you can hardly go wrong! The Comedy Of Terrors is a hilarious horror comedy about a bunch of down-on-their-luck undertakers hoping to strike it rich, and if it means blue murder to achieve the goal then so be it!

Enter the topsy-turvy world of Hinchley & Trumbull, an undertaker business that has seen better days. Old Hinchley (Boris Karloff) suffers from various physical ailments and thus leaves the bulk of ‘business affairs’ to his greedy, mean-spirited and regularly intoxicated son-in-law, Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price). Fed up with Hinchley, and even more fed up with his attractive but talentless wife Amaryllis (Joyce Jameson), an aspiring opera singer and Hinchley’s daughter, Trumbull decides that it’s high time to take matters in his own hands. Together with his bumbling and shy assistant Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre), Trumbull conjures up some apparently fool-proof schemes to speed up the death of various hapless candidates and by doing so, rake in fees for the shoddy funeral services. But the schemes rarely work out, and even the company coffin needs constant recycling in order to save expenses! Things go from bad to worse when Mr. John Black, Esquire (Basil Rathbone), the wealthy landlord of our little funeral parlour, threatens Trumbull and family with eviction if they don’t pay up their long overdue rent within two days. Naturally, this calls for an instant plan of action. The problem is that Mr. Black, an amateur thespian, refuses to die no matter how hard Trumbull and Gillie try to dispose of him! Black’s “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” speech from ‘Macbeth’ whilst in the midst of dying is comedic genius, and of course he won’t stay dead for long. Cue for a madcap chase around the house in which Trumbull gets his well deserved comeuppance, and Gillie gets Amaryllis, the little lady that won his heart.

The Comedy Of Terrors is an enjoyable slice of macabre slapstick and works a treat thanks to the on-screen chemistry of Price, Lorre, Rathbone and Karloff. Plenty of gags, witty one-liners for Price, a great score by Lex Baxter, and atmospheric sets make for a viewing pleasure that even non-horror fans will enjoy. Director Jacques Tourneur pays homage to his own 1942 horror movie classic Cat People by casting Rhubarb the cat as Hinchley’s feline companion Cleopatra – and quite some scenes that cat gets!

SPECIAL FEATURES OF THIS DUAL FORMAT EDITION INCLUDE:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature, transferred from original film elements by MGM
• Original Mono 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio Commentary with author and film historian David Del Valle and cult director David DeCoteau
• Vincent Price: My Life and Crimes – The previously unreleased, alternate cut of the 1987 David Del Valle/Vincent Price interview in which the actor looks back over his extraordinary career
• Whispering in Distant Chambers: The Nightfall of Jacques Tourneur – A specially-commissioned video essay by David Cairns looking at the various themes and stylistic motifs which reappear throughout the director’s work
• Richard Matheson Storyteller – An archive interview with the Comedy of Terrors writer
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris Fujiwara, author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall