Die Monster Die! (1965) - Super Mega Halloween Project #5

Spoiler alert, it's radiation again.

Total Score: 12/23.

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Before I get started on this film I just want to reiterate something very relevant to this project. The Total Score by no means defines the quality of the film. Here’s a quick rephrasing of an explanation from my first ever post (those of you who’ve read it before, feel free to gloss over it):

“One could have a not-very-scary, super obscure, laugh-a-minute film score 9 points. Equally, a terrifying and immensely exciting film could have no humour or style, be a complete cultural flop, and score 14 points.”

I just wanted to throw all that out there as there’ve been some low scores of late, and I want to impress that numbers will never be a better metric for how good a film is better than words. Words are everything.

With that, let’s dive into Die Monster Die! (1965).

The opening titles are trippy and dramatic. This is yet another Karloff film, and while he does his fair share of stumbling and groaning in it, his character is mostly lucid.

We open on an American man stepping off a train and into the decidedly unfriendly streets of Arkham. Confusingly for any Lovecraft readers, we seem to be in the North of England, if the accents and the world’s most ivy-covered house are anything to go by.

Could this be anywhere but the UK?

Our hero Steven Reinhardt is seeking directions to the Whitley Place. Even a few geezers at The Sun - a charming pub with excellent old-school pint glasses (or at least, old-school in 2025) won’t help him. Funnily enough, The Sun is one of my local pubs, though it’s a good deal grottier than the one in this film.

Anyway, our man might as well be Sgt Howie. Even the bike-shop fellow won’t help him. Selfish, if you ask me; doesn’t he know we need exposition?

After a lovely spooky walk through a country landscape, with shrivelled trees and misty heaths aplenty, Steve reaches the estate. There’s a million warning signs, and a fucking beartrap to boot. Fortunately, as I’ve already said, he’s American, and doesn’t bat an eye (much).

As we traverse the estate I’m positively sick with jealousy at how utterly marvellous it is. Steve goes as far as ’sumptuous’. He failed to spot the grim reaper type lurking in the bracken. He also fails to spot Boris Karloff, who gives us a fright appearing directly behind him as he peers around the foyer. Soon we meet his daughter, Susan, who’s quite taken with Steve. They’re classmates from a month ago, apparently (at Miskatonic, no doubt). Despite Karloff’s frosty (read, hostile) demeanour we get an inkling he might be a decent bloke, trying to warn everyone off with his rudeness. After a brief look over some family portraits, and learning that Susan’s grandad Corbin went bananas (that’s all we get about him for now - snappy small talk, Susan), as well as meeting the rather diminished butler Merwyn (or possibly Mervin?), she and Steve go upstairs.

In the meantime, Karloff and Merwyn descend into the dingy dungeon (every good house has one). Merwyn has something of a fit, but, British till the bitter end, promises that he’s alright, really. He’s not, but we’ll get to it. The dungeon is full of skull decals and décor, and ‘chains for devils!’ - no, it’s not that sort of dungeon, before you make any comments. They’ve got big ol’ spiders down there.

Susan’s mother, Leticia, meets Steve, and requests to talk to him alone. She gets her way and spends a few minutes relating a strange story about a maid the family had until recently. Her name was Helga, and, overcome by self loathing (we’ve all been there) and maybe some sort of disease, she began wearing a veil, and, after some crying and the dropping of a gold earring, disappeared. Now if you haven’t pieced together that she’s the grim reaper from earlier, don’t worry, because it took me about an hour.

Finally Leticia ends her story and implores Steve to take Susan out of this house. It’s vaguely implied Karloff might be a bad sort of chap. Steve is extremely direct, which is refreshing, and makes his character that much more memorable.

Eventually Karloff comes back upstairs for a chat with the wife. It’s revealed she invited Steve, not Susan. Odd. There’s some more discussion of Corbin, who was EVIL and had EVIL objects in the cellar. He was into incantations and crying out to ‘creatures of EVIL’, and died invoking dark powers. Sounds like a great time, honestly, and I almost wish he’d had a Substack.

We begin to suspect Leticia has withered, or become disfigured in some way. This will be answered later.

During dinner, everyone glosses over a horrendous scream that rings out through the house. I don’t really blame them, because it’s a meal so awkward I’d scream too. Thankfully the butler cuts the tension by passing out.

Rough.

Steve pores over a mysterious tome in the library/study/posh person room. There’s a fantastic fireplace, and everything in the room and house in general is extremely cool. The book, titled Cult of the Outer Ones, gives us more insight into Corbin’s dark pastimes.

Before long Susan is jumpscared by the reaper at the window. Steve, being a man in the past, suggests lightly that she is imagining things. She sees it again after about twenty seconds, and he doubles down on this hypothesis. Susan accepts it as a lost cause and declares her love for him, which he returns. From his perspective, ‘Everything’s gonna be alright’.

Above the stairs, the eyes of Corbin’s portrait glow with an eerie light.

Another terrible howl or two stretches through the otherwise silent night. A log pops in the fire, scaring everyone shitless. If you’ve ever had a fireplace you know how it is.

After some investigation it’s revealed that Merwyn is the source of the noise. Unsurprisingly, he’s dead as a doornail. Karloff is rather casual but simultaneously really assertive about taking care of it, and it is hilarious to watch. When he eventually leaves the room to bury the butler in the garden, a tricky feat, given that he’s mostly wheelchair-bound, Steve investigates the potential crime scene. The unmistakable shape of a skeleton is scorched into the boards (reminded me of When He Died), as if a small nuke went off. Steve barely registers this, as he’s more taken by the strange sounds and lights emanating from the greenhouse. Further howling occurs.

Shortly after, Steve is in the woods after fleeing from Karloff, who nearly spotted his attempts to enter the greenhouse, but is set upon by the hooded freak from earlier, now wielding a knife. The freak’s face is appallingly marred.

Our hero visits the doctor, who offers him a drink and has a healthy gulp himself. Steve takes no prisoners and demands information on what exactly is going on around here. We learn that Corbin Whitley died in the doctor’s arms, and nobody else saw the body. The death certificate said it was a cerebral haemorrhage. Hm.

Back at the manor it looks like Letitia has mutated. A whole bunch of stuff happens, and radiation comes up. I thought we’d finally gotten past it, but no, here it is again. Helga is revealed as the robed creature, and the greenhouse to be full of giant plants. My notes here say ‘God let it not be radiation’. Unfortunately, it is just that. The couple investigate appalling shrieks from the tool-shed or something like it, and, after Susan insists she’s coming in with her man, they discover something genuinely disturbing.

Our heroes step into a radioactive nightmare straight out of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). The line, it ‘looks like a zoo in hell’ really tells you all you need to know. This ‘menagerie of horrors’ is the only truly unsettling moment of the film. It seems a whole bunch of animals have been mutating into strange and hideous forms in here.

Steve yammers on about radiation some more, as if Susan’s never heard of it (again, they met in science class). As we’ve already touched on briefly, the plants in the greenhouse have green heat-exuding rocks buried in their soil, which explains why they’re so big (you can almost hear Supernature playing in the background). As Steve muses on this one plant begins to stretch out it’s tendrils for Susan. She’s quickly saved, and sent upstairs after a good old-fashioned ‘Don’t worry’.

Down into the cellar goes Steve, facing off against hanging skeletons (a cheesy jumpscare, this one), and bats! I love bats, so look out in the long term for bat content from me. He soon finds the source of the house’s evils, a humming and glowing stone. Karloff reckons it came from Heaven, and it isn’t that serious.

In the meantime Letitia has disappeared. Karloff calls out for her in distress, which is actually quite sweet. Before long she turns up, and is super mutated. After a brief showdown, she falls through the French doors and dies soon after, face decaying rapidly into a bloody skull. Nasty.

Steve writes off the idea of a curse, having realised the glowing rock was a meteorite. We learn that where it landed initially grew loads of lush vegetation, and Karloff hoped to restore beauty and honour to the area and his family name. Quite a nice idea, but flawed in practise. It occurred to me at this point that it’s odd (and also quite funny) that he didn’t clear all the weirdo cultist shit out of the basement.

In a shocking turn of events that nobody saw coming, Chekhov’s Helga shows up just as Karloff is crushing the uranium to dust, wielding a huge axe. She fails to do any damage though, and instead falls straight into the meteorite pit. However, the smashed meteor let out loads of radiation and now Karloff, too, has begun to mutate! Lichtenberg-esque scars glow beneath his skin, and he begins to resemble Space Kook.

Steve follows a trail of glowing handprints (this is a good effect) before finding the final monster, his not-quite-father-in-law. There’s a good deal of focus put on Karloff’s slow and shambling walk, which is very impactful, and alongside the shrieking radiation sound makes for a climactic final scene. He does like a bit like he’s wrapped in tinfoil, but it’s still spooky. Before long though, he collapses over the balustrade and turns into a big pile of magnesium. A traumatic day for Susan.

With the house ablaze, the lovers flee, only stopping to look back as the fire purges the evil from within.

The END.

The track from Famous Monsters isn’t one I listen to very often. It’s a little boring, but it’s still enjoyable enough as a horror-movie inspired tune. It doesn’t succinctly summarise the entire plot of the film, so that’s a bonus, but it’s definitely the least exciting song so far.

As ever, thanks for reading,

Until next time,

H.E.

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