The Murder Mansion
The Murder Mansion (1972) Rewatch? ❎
The first ten minutes or so of this had me expecting an entirely different film to the one I ended up watching. Opening with an incredibly early seventies scene of cars and a bike in competition with each other to race somewhere, we don’t know where, laying out the groundwork for each of the characters, I was primed for, I dunno, something more akin to And Soon The Darkness. Implausible but trying desperately to appear gritty and grounded.
Haha. Nope. That’s not this film in the slightest and looking back, I’d just been watching a serious film take on Wacky Races for ten minutes before the rest of the film turned into, and I piss you not here, Scooby Doo:The Giallo. As enjoyable a lurch as it was unexpected and it would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids.
The film bombs straight into the realms of creaking, fog bound, spooky old house with sinister portraits hanging on the wall, noisy doors, zombies in the garden and all manner of stuff. Yep, a lot of it comes with the old dark house territory that Scooby Doo found it’s inspiration in but there’s more and more giving the game away as the feather-light plot unravels and whilst the very end is purest giallo, the run up to that ending couldn’t be more Scooby Doo for grown ups without putting Scooby into the film. It’s quite something.
Naturally, I fucking loved it. Pass me a Scooby Snack, I’m rungry.