It’s one in all cinemas most recognizable subgenres, but to our data it doesn’t (but) have a reputation.
We outline the “Mansion Homicide Comedy” to be one of many class of movies which employs the tropes of the gothic thriller thriller for comedic impact. For the needs of this text, we’re limiting our dialogue to movies of a selected construction: a disparate group of characters, every with their very own ends and backstory, collect at an historical mansion the place a sequence of murders takes place, implicating all of them and compelling the visitors to attempt to remedy the murders with out exterior assist.
It’s a hilariously acquainted and maybe even hackneyed premise, however it’s this very familiarity that offers it energy.
In contrast to most of our different High 10s, we’ll inform the story of this subgenre in chronological order as a substitute of the order of the Flickchart Globals. A vital facet to discover right here is how this subgenre has constructed upon itself, and continues to refer to itself, because the years go by. In a short time in its historical past (by the second entry in our record, really), the Mansion Homicide Comedy turned self-aware, referring to itself from inside the body, or on the very least assuming that the viewers is genre-aware. This by itself is just not distinctive to the Mansion Homicide Comedy, however nowhere else does this consciousness kind a lot of the backbone of what makes these movies satisfying.
All of those movies are to some extent each homage and parody, and but (with one exception) they’re all meant to be “taken straight”; that’s, we’re anticipated to be horrified by the murders, whereas nonetheless having fun with the jokes. These should not Bare Gun-style send-ups.
It’s this sweet-salty juxtaposition of nervous laughter across the corpse that offers these movies vitality. They reveal one thing about human nature that eludes different comedies, even so-called “darkish comedies,” which these should not.
The evening could also be darkish, there could also be demise behind each hidden door, however the bouncing chromatic strings within the soundtrack announce that we’re in that enjoyable, cozy, liminal area of the “ooky-spooky.”
Eight strangers (or are they?) are invited to a elaborate house the place they’re taunted by an unseen madman who picks them off one after the other in more and more dramatic methods.
It’s a format that Agatha Christie would steal for And Then There Had been None, and tons of extra would do the identical. It supplies scrumptious excuse to convey colourful, wisecracking personalities collectively. However to ensure that it to truly generate a plot, you might want to put some mechanisms into place. Right here we will begin to establish the foundations and tropes which drive this subgenre.
First, nobody can depart. Each entry in our record is a bottle episode. The constraint on area and the (seemingly) impossibility of latest characters amps up the strain, and thus the drama.
Second, you could have hidden doorways and passages.
Third, it should prove that amongst your assortment of “strangers” there are literally secret connections and interweavings.
Fourth, you want jokes. This movie in all probability doesn’t rely as an outright “comedy,” however there’s sufficient levity, within the banter and within the character of the assistant butler (who is just not as humorous as he thinks he’s), to forestall it from turning into an outright horror film. The filmmaker’s intent is to not suffocate us with oppressive terror, however reasonably to have a ripping good time, with demise simply taking place to face within the center.
Fifth, you want a corpse to fall out of a closet like standing lumber. It will both be shockingly horrible or hilarious, relying on the viewers’s way of thinking.
With these tropes in place, the stage is ready to discover in what number of methods we will inform tales about violent demise with a smile on our face.
“All this, midnight, the alligators, I imply the heirs, and the household lawyer all gathering to listen to the studying of the desire. It jogs my memory of all of the melodramas and homicide mysteries I’ve performed in.”
This astounding piercing of the fourth wall by Bob Hope is among the loudest and earliest winks in cinema, and it lets us all in on the joke.
All most of these comedy-mysteries are collusions between the filmmakers and the viewers. We all know we’re not going to be pressured to witness any sort of “true” horror, and the film guarantees none. Moreover, the film is predicted to stick to a reasonably strict algorithm, any deviation from which might one way or the other puncture the magic.
The Cat and the Canary, directed by Elliot Nugent, is a Southern Gothic story primarily based on an insanely widespread play from 1922. A household gathers to listen to the studying of the desire of a wealthy eccentric who rigs his bequests in such a method as to protect in opposition to a pressure of insanity in his household: the younger fairly ingenue will get every part offered she stays sane for 30 days.
Subsequently, everybody else (apart from our wisecracking male romantic lead) has super incentive to drive her loopy by way of using each horror cliché that may be assembled at quick discover, together with however not restricted to an escaped maniac prowling the grounds. Only a few deaths really happen, however the threats, behind each secret door and hidden panel, are actual sufficient that with out Wally (Bob Hope) cracking clever each thirty seconds, we’d be crushed by the swampy fumes of melodrama.
Because it stands, we’re provided an exhaustive but family-safe tour of the mystery-melodrama toolbox, which for all its predictability (particularly in 2025) is extremely satisfying.
One Physique Too Many, directed by Frank McDonald, has a hilarious title, and the film is much better and funnier than its five-digit place on the Globals would signify. Jack Haley delivers his finest non-metallic efficiency as a automobile salesman who’s mistaken for a detective at an eccentric millionaire’s wake. He should then guard the corpse lest or not it’s tampered with in such a method as to despoil the desire.
As we’ll later see with Clue, OBTM is a really “corpse-positive” movie. A great deal of time is spent with the characters gathered across the casket, or shifting the mortal stays, or swapping them out for a dwelling physique to set us up for a jump-scare later. There is no such thing as a “tasteful omission” of the realities of a wake. They (the characters, and viewers) are right here to see the physique; let’s not faux in any other case.
By enjoying so freely with the corpse, by cracking jokes round it and prop-ifying it, we double-down on what’s at first look merely coarse irreverence, however which is definitely a fantastically transgressive, post-modern dig on the solemnity that often surrounds end-of-life rituals within the West.
All of the movies on this record preserve this morbid playfulness, with out changing into outright “darkish comedies” (a minimum of, not in the way in which we use that time period right this moment). Movies like One Physique Too Many succeed as a result of they handle to take care of their silliness despite, or due to, their dreary storylines.
Fog Island, from director Terry O. Morse, is, frankly, an inferior entry in our record (and it’s the lowest ranked general). It’s flatly shot and comprises solely the barest minimal of humor to justify its inclusion on this record. Nevertheless it brings sufficient essential tropes to the social gathering to warrant dialogue.
George Zucco performs a rich ex-convict who was framed for against the law. Additionally, his spouse was murdered. He concocts a ruse to convey all of the suspects to his foggy island for a séance and successive execution, by means each bizarre and diabolical.
This movie comprises the earliest instance we might discover of the host of one in all these gothic mansion homicide events really making ready little presents for every of their visitors, an thought which can be absolutely developed by its successors Home on Haunted Hill and Clue. This highly effective gesture communicates the host’s premeditation and management. He’s displaying that, regardless of the visitors’ particular person, greed-induced intentions, he’s the one with the plan.
The visitors, all from some model of “excessive society” and every accustomed to the foundations of dinner events, not have etiquette and social mores to lean on and defend them. In a method, the actual violation that these Mansion Homicide Mysteries commit (whether or not they’re comedic or not) is to carve out a mini-society with a totally new and profane algorithm. The contributors are confronted with twin objectives: determine the foundations to allow them to survive, but additionally get again to the “actual world” as quickly as doable.
Our second-highest-ranked movie on this record comes as near an ideal prototype as doable whereas nonetheless retaining a intelligent and compelling story.
Vincent Worth performs an eccentric millionaire who rents an allegedly haunted home and invitations 5 determined acquaintances to attempt to survive the evening, with the promise of $10,000 to the survivors or their subsequent of kin. That is teed up as a unusual birthday current for his ice-queen spouse, however after all there are twists and turns, hidden motives and unbelievable fake-outs, all couched inside William Fort’s trademark goofy-horror model.
The disconnected nature of the visitors is especially obvious right here. Gone are the threadbare household or enterprise ties which often clarify what everybody’s doing there. This time, it’s a utterly contrived and intentional assemblage of disparate personalities, pushed (ostensibly) by their greed and curiosity, and (finally) by the host’s cautious machinations.
Echoing Fog Island and foreshadowing Clue, we have now a bunch who has ready somewhat “social gathering favor” for every visitor: a Colt Mannequin 1903 Pocket Hammer semi-automatic pistol, nestled right into a tiny morbid coffin.
The comedy (each the intentional and the unintentional) is what makes the legitimately unsettling risk that exists in every scene enjoyable and bearable. With out that spoonful of sugar, the tough medication of shrieking ghosts and severed heads (together with no matter else William Fort has happening within the aisles of your native theater) could be at finest grating, and at worst traumatic.
It’s the scene-chewing hammery and dry-martini wisecracks that transforms a reasonably vanilla gothic-murder-mystery idea right into a enjoyable expertise that qualifies as “spooky” with out actually being scary.
Launched within the U.S. with the marginally much less regional title No Place Like Murder, director Pat Jackson’s What A Carve Up! represents essentially the most overtly British entry in our record, and in addition our first outright parody.
A person and his buddy go to a spooky Yorkshire mansion to listen to the studying of a will, and wouldn’t you realize it, they discover an assortment of oddball relations and a poorly-motivated serial killer who picks them off one after the other.
What distinguishes the movie is the casting of Sid James and Kenneth Conner as a sort of two-headed vaudevillian model of our typical protagonist (resembling Bob Hope in The Cat and the Canary). By inserting a comedy staff on the middle of the plot, we keep away from lots of the drained outdated rhythms of “severe character delivers severe line, comedy character delivers a wisecrack.” The 2 clowns, completely balanced in opposition to one another and having stupendous chemistry, generate a recent sort of vitality that propels the by-now-inevitable beats of the plot.
Once more, we have now express reference to the style of the story they’re in: one in all our heroes is a proofreader for corny pulp horror tales, and (identical to Jamie Kennedy in Scream) is aware of what to anticipate, and what to concern, behind each secret door.
And with this entry, now within the “postmodern” period of the 60s, we have now our first roughly intentional instance of parody: it is a (free) remake of Karloff’s The Ghoul, made with the specific intent of sending up its solemn self-importance.
All of the movies on this record have some facet of winking on the viewers, and on the ridiculousness of this sort of melodrama, however from this level ahead all of our movies will put on their “let’s all snicker on the the way in which they used to inform tales” perspective on their sleeves.
Leaping ahead fifteen years lands us within the cynical 70s, a decade when many cultural artifacts have been being re-examined within the context of the post-60s hangover. What higher method earn your tweed-jacket elbow patches than by skewering a few of fiction’s most beloved characters?
The story of Robert Moore’s Homicide by Loss of life is barely askew from the opposite movies on this record. A millionaire (performed by Truman Capote – sure, the Truman Capote) invitations the 5 biggest detectives to his creepy mansion to resolve a homicide that may happen at midnight, the homicide turning out to be his personal.
The hook is that these 5 detectives are all really extraordinarily recognizable (although in another way named) riffs on well-known movie and literary sleuths: Sam Spade, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple. They aren’t actually “characters” a lot as one-dimensional Scary Film-style popular culture parodies, performed by one of many biggest ensemble casts ever assembled.
Written by Neil Simon, this premise would appear to be comedic fertile floor, however its laboriousness and extremely loud metafictional winking stop the viewers from getting correctly swept up within the alleged “humor” of the conditions.
Ultimately, the villain’s third-act speech reveals the filmmakers’ final purpose, which isn’t actually to make a “movie” per se, however reasonably to assemble an elaborate piece of efficiency artwork which critiques the conventions, tropes, and clichés of the golden-age literary-mystery style:
“You’ve all been so intelligent for thus lengthy, you’ve forgotten to be humble. You’ve tricked and fooled your readers for years. You’ve tortured us with shock endings that made no sense. You’ve launched characters on the finish that weren’t within the guide earlier than. You’ve withheld clues and data that made it unattainable for us to guess who did it. However now the tables are turned.”
Setting apart the equity or unfairness of this critique (of an whole style), it’s a unusual and world-breaking option to have an in-story character seek advice from “your readers” when talking to a desk stuffed with literary archetypes (as if they have been in charge!).
By fashionable eyes, the movie fails due to the very factor it complains about: a third-act twist so intense as to make you throw up your arms and switch off the TV. I’m positive the movie thinks it’s being very intelligent for establishing this mirroring of its personal level, however it merely doesn’t land the way in which it thinks it does.
However what the movie does do effectively, effectively sufficient to present it a spot on this record, is that it factors out and has enjoyable with the absurdity of us all persevering with to inform these tales to one another, era after era, once we know utterly what to anticipate. These comedies exist as a result of, for no matter purpose, we have now concurrently determined to mock the template whereas lustfully persevering with to make use of it.
Subsequent, from Golan-Globus and director Pete Walker, we have now Home of the Lengthy Shadows, a considerably forgettable 80s tribute to Hammer Horror, which you nonetheless undoubtedly ought to see as a result of it stars Vincent Worth, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and John Carradine collectively in a movie for the primary and solely time. (Oh, and Desi Arnaz, Jr. is there too.)
Arnaz performs a author who bets his writer he can write a gothic novel in twenty-four hours, after which goes to a spooky Welsh mansion for inspiration. As soon as there he discovers a real-life plot involving (wouldn’t you realize it) a gothic household secret and an escaped madman.
The presence of those 4 godfathers of gothic horror turns the considerably inane story right into a heartfelt tribute to a misplaced golden age. Nicely into their sixties and seventies, they’re all one way or the other nonetheless on the peak of their powers, glowing within the gentle of candelabras and moonlight, eyebrows and cheekbones utterly amuck.
In contrast, the thirty-year-old Desi Arnaz, Jr. looks as if somebody’s hyperactive child brother attempting desperately to get consideration from the adults. He’s clearly the comedian reduction, and he does effectively sufficient to maintain the movie firmly within the “comedy” part. However in comparison with the movies that come later on this record, it’s clear that the 80s have been nonetheless attempting to craft the syntax of comedic-non-parody tribute-pastiche which might develop into the dominant love language of the pre/peri/post-millennial movie canon.
It’s nonetheless clear that this movie’s storytelling mode suits the sample we have now been discussing, hanging a lampshade on all of the predictable methods of the Mansion Homicide Thriller and discovering a singular, loving shade of humor in them, and in ourselves for persevering with to like them a lot.
We come now to the highest-ranked movie on our record, the movie that to fashionable generations exemplifies the Mansion Homicide Comedy. A field workplace flop on its launch (due partly resulting from a William-Fort-like gimmick which had totally different theaters displaying one in all three totally different endings) Clue discovered pop-culture redemption in its tv and residential video life. These are, in any case, movies finest watched within the coziest doable setting.
The story options the long run sufferer, named (after all) Mr. Boddy, inviting six seemingly unconnected strangers to a creepy New England mansion (“Hill Home”) with the trace that every of their blackmailings can be resolved. As soon as the solid has been conveniently bottled up, the butler Wadsworth reveals himself to be each sufferer and orchestrator, and a kudzu plot is unfurled whereby every visitor is presented a deadly weapon (those from the board sport that impressed the movie) and invited to commit homicide. The night progresses in real-time because the corpses stack up, secret passages are revealed, and our bodies fall out of doorways like so many dominoes.
To know the crack-like attraction of Clue, you could be aware of two essential points. The primary is that the screenwriter and director Jonathan Lynn is British, and brings with him the Euro-vaudevillian comedic vitality that we noticed in What a Carve Up!. In different phrases, the movie doesn’t undergo from American comedy maladies resembling a boring third act devoid of jokes.
Second is the robust and palpable interaction between the snappy dialogue (modeled on His Woman Friday) and John Morris’s inherently comedic rating. There’s a lot of music in Clue, and it’s important to its pacing and comedic timing.
Morris is a scientist of the comedy movie rating, with Johnny Dangerously, The Lady in Pink, and all of Mel Brooks’ movies already on his C.V. by the point Clue got here calling. (And we’ll hear his work once more within the closing entry, assuming you’re watching these as you learn.) Of the various points of the Mansion Homicide Comedy that Clue has mastered, one to pay particular consideration to is its use of music to each drive the vitality and to maintain reminding us that, though human beings are actually being murdered, that is purported to be humorous.
This writer has written extensively about Clue and there’s no scarcity of essential reward and evaluation arguing for Clue‘s standing as a contemporary traditional. What we’re proposing by presenting it on this record is a recent lens by way of which to judge its brilliance, and that’s as maybe the flagship entry of this very particular subgenre.
Lower than a yr after Clue was launched, Gene Wilder launched his closing directorial effort, Haunted Honeymoon, which he additionally wrote. This may be his second and closing on-screen collaboration along with his spouse Gilda Radner, who could be recognized with ovarian most cancers three months after its launch.
We’re going out on a limb ending our record with a lower-ranked and considerably obscure entry, following our inclusion of the astoundingly widespread Clue. However we predict there’s something to the truth that in 1985 there have been two entries in our record being filmed concurrently. One thing was taking place in our tradition’s relationship to demise and the previous.
Set within the pre-war Nineteen Thirties, Wilder and Radner play radio “thriller theater” actors who’re invited to one in all their ancestral estates in upstate New York, ostensibly for a cocktail party with eccentric household. Unknown to them however revealed to us within the first act, the social gathering is a ruse orchestrated by the male actor’s boss and psychiatrist to treatment him of on-air panic assaults by “scaring him to demise.” You realize, like hiccups.
Haunted Honeymoon suits completely into the Wilder canon, that includes old school slapstick, playful remedy of adultery, and precisely one musical quantity, identical to Younger Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother.
Wilder got down to recreate the tone of the “comedy chiller” movies and radio performs from his childhood. He wound up working parallel to the very premise we began with right here: with the applying of sure tropes, lovingly lampshaded (however, crucially, NOT parodied), the filmmaker can create a comfortable, spooky environment with wealthy and fertile soil for comedy.
There should have been one thing within the air throughout these Reagan-Thatcher years which brought on a collective look-back on the enjoyable we used to have again within the 30s-50s. Again when “horror” didn’t contain gelatinous make-up results or chainsaws, however reasonably an enormous creaky home stuffed with secrets and techniques and a vaguely furry risk round each darkish nook.
Tell us within the feedback should you disagree, however it’s our rivalry that the custom of the Mansion Homicide Comedy has nearly completely died out. Considerably-cozy murder-mysteries like Knives Out nonetheless sometimes break by way of. However for some opaque cultural purpose, there appears to be little urge for food for PG-rated laughs on the foibles of corpses, and that could be a disgrace.
By no means has the specter of demise and doom been extra current in our lives by way of the 1000’s of self-created home windows that we peek out of on the so-called “world.” By no means have we been extra in want of a humorousness about it.
However with the alleged finish of the Chilly Struggle, the West appears to have determined to get “severe” about issues. We’ve got relegated comedy to be a factor that occurs throughout glorified violence, or when unhappy, offended folks attempt to have relationships, or solely in animated worlds. It not has a comfortable place subsequent to an precise corpse.
Perhaps that’s a very good factor (we’ll examine again in one other 4 many years), however it nonetheless bears shut scrutiny. Even once we’re laughing at demise, a minimum of we face it immediately.
