Grade: D-
Synopsis: From the morgue, a woman’s corpse recounts the events leading to her death involving a hypnotist (Bela Lugosi), a doctor (George Zucco), and a cop.
Scared to Death is notable as the only color film staring Bela Lugosi. Unfortunately, that’s about all it’s notable for, as the film is comically bad.
How bad? Well, Lugosi plays a cape-wearing hypnotist with a midget sidekick while what appears to be a renegade member Blue Man Group stalks around looking ominously through windows. Now, the Blue Man isn’t the least bit scary, but you know it’s supposed to be ominous because of the music cues.
And speaking of those cues, it’s as if the filmmakers were trying to compensate for the story’s total lack of suspense by inserting dramatic music cues at every possible moment.
Fortunately, Scared to Death is so bad it’s actually watchable. The rather convoluted plot does keep you at least mildly interested, and the sheer absurdity of it all makes it easy to chuckle through the 65-minute running time, despite the stagy production and stiff acting.
Bottom Line: As the only color film to feature Bela Lugosi in a starring role, Scared to Death may be of interest to Lugosi fans, but others should steer clear.
3 Responses on “Scared to Death (1947)”:
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Devans00 said:
Grade: C
I’m convinced that the Blue Man Group stole the idea for the look of their act from the Indigo Man who kept peeking in the window. No way to prove it I suppose.
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Bernard McManus said:
Grade: C+
I’m fairly convinced that the director of this movie and the main actors were engaging in some good winking humor throughout the movie and they were spoofing the horror film genre.
I like watching this movie over and over again because my two year old daughter is attracted to it, so it earns a lot of bonus points right there and, as always, Bela Lugosi is a blast.
Setting aside this peculiarities, most movie viewers won’t like this film very much and that’s too bad - they need to see it 77 times with a two year old to truly appreciate it… I particular enjoy listening to the music in the background whenever Indigo (the midget man - who in real life lived a long life which is rare for midgets) would appear on screen.
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Bernard McManus said:
Grade: A-
I give it an A for costumes - I particularly liked Terry Lee, the reporter’s, camel overcoat and I enjoyed his banter.
