cult film freak: SCOTT BRADY, LISA GAYE & VIRGINIA MAYO IN 'CASTLE OF EVIL'

Year: 1966 Rating: **1/2

The horror/mystery trope of a group of heirs meeting in a spooky location and getting picked off only partially occurs in CASTLE OF EVIL starring terrific b-movie actors led by the always gruffly affable Scott Brady, linked to sexy younger Lisa Gaye while middle-age Virginia Mayo has a terrific line of "I attract bums like park benches..."

She's played some wild, loose women and could have really shined here, but pretty much all the roles consist of the performers... including Hugh Marlowe as a patient doctor and David Brian an intense lawyer... standing around spouting expository dialogue without fleshing out their potential... as being either would-be killers or victims...

Virginia Mayo and Hugh Marlowe in CASTLE OF EVIL

The castle interior aesthetically resembling a colorful Victorian-plush Hammer vehicle, EVIL is more science-fiction in that antagonist Shelley Morrison... as the dead man's scheming nurse... has a lab/security-headquarters where she monitor-watches the same characters as the audience...

But no one's thoroughly entertained as b-director Francis D. Lyon blandly aims the camera without building suspense through the kind of creative angles that make horror movies intense and effectively spooky: even the formidable-looking dead man (and his lookalike robotic monster), seeming game for what promises a violent body-count exploitation, take the horror by the horns — in what's ultimately more stagey than cinematic.