Runtime: 96 minutes
Directed by: Gerald Thomas
Starring: Several of the usual crew, plus Harry H. Corbett and Peter Butterworth
From: Anglo-Amalagated Film Distributors
As I haven't seen any film from this franchise in a few months and multiple people have told me that this was one of the better entries, it was the perfect time to check this out. I'll be seeing another horror-comedy within the next week but this did provide plenty of laughs while taking the piss out of a Hammer movie... in a loving way. There's a dark forest (named Hokum Woods!), a creepy mansion, a buxom lady-then again, both that studio and this franchise had a fascination with that-and several ghastly creations; there's no scares to be had unless you don't like large snakes... then one scene will get to you.
Two detectives-named Bung and Slobotham-investigate the disappearance of several women; their ultimate fate is rather daffy... admittedly I've seen more than one Hammer movie that had a rather far-out plot. This can't be called high-brow (several of the puns are real groaners, even if they all made me laugh; furthermore, a key plot point involves cross-dressing) yet that is OK. Besides knowing what you should get from a Carry On movie, this was a successful spoof of a particular topic which should be amusing to you if that particular studio is something you fancy in general; it did capture the look of it rather well.
I mean, it's not the bawdiest of the franchise that I've seen so far (I can only imagine what the films from the late 60's through the 70's were like) and the highlight of the non-regulars was Fenella Fielding as the buxom lady, an attractive and sultry lady who still looked ghoulish as the actual head of the entire evil operation. There is also an evil Dr. Watt, which does lead to a nice variation of the Who's on First routine. That is an example of all the funny jokes and one-liners which are present throughout. Heck, I was quite surprised there was a title song, sung by a guy doing a half-assed Elvis impersonation.
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