Die Monster Die (1965)
What's It About?
Two-fisted man of science Stephen Reinhart arrives at the palatial estate of his new fiance Susan Witley to find the place in a state of chaos. His fiance seems fine but her mother is bedridden and urges Stephen to take her daughter and run. There's a black dead spot on the estate where a meteor has fallen and bits of it are being used to cause the plants in the greenhouse to grow to enormous sizes but they're rotten on the inside, people around the Witley estate are acting strange and weird sounds are heard throughout the house.
Is It Any Good?
In a word this movie is terminally boring. It's nice seeing Boris Karloff as the patriarch of the film's doomed family but I doubt even he would tell you it was one of his worthwhile roles. Our scientist hero has the accent of a New York cab driver and is that sort of he man fighting hero that existed in every movie made between 1940 and 1960. If that's not enough, the titular monster is as lame as they come.
The movie is ostensibly an adaptation of The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft but there's nothing remotely Lovecraftian about this movie, it seems to be more of a cash-in on the popularity of the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations done by American International Pictures (the studio that made Die Monster Die)
If you're dead set on seeing a Colour Out of Space adaptation then I would reccomend another Scream Factory title, The Curse. It is as goofy in an '80s way as this movie is goofy in a '60s way but it stays truer to the spirit of the original story and has some decent body horror effects. Plus, it comes packed with the sequel-in-name-only The Curse 2: The Bite, wherein a man is exposed to radioactive waste and grows snake hands. I haven't seen it, but come on, how can you lose with radioactive snake hands?
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
Toss this doorstop and get The Curse instead.