The Comedy of Terrors

Price and Lorre are somewhat over-enthusiastic undertakers in Richard Matheson's disappointingly scripted, self-conscious horror spoof set in New England in the 1890s. With credentials of this calibre, the movie could hardly fail, but it comes perilously close. On the other hand, you've never seen so many scene-stealers together in their natural environment (notably Karloff as Price's senile sleeping partner, and Rathbone as his landlord, a would-be Shakespearean actor with cataleptic tendencies). And Price, of course, deserves a knighthood: Sir Vincent, knight of the long knives.