Watch Macabre (1958) Online

Macabre (1958)iMDB Rating: 5.9
Date Released : 1 October 1958
Genre : Horror, Thriller
Stars : William Prince, Jim Backus, Christine White, Jacqueline Scott
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 870 MB

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A small-town doctor (William Prince) gets caught up in a revenge plot when his small daughter is kidnapped and buried alive as he is given a few short hours to find her before she suffocates. To cover the risk of a heart attack while viewing the film, Producer-Director William Castle provided each member of the audience with an official certificate issued by Lloyds of London to insure them for $1,000 against death by fright. The gimmick worked and Castle was on his way to movie exploitation stardom!

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Review :

Great Marketing Trick At The Box Office

What set this film apart from all others playing at the time, was an insurance policy, issued by Lloyds Of London, given out at the box office, and insuring the patron against "death by fright" during the viewing. Of course, I doubt that anyone's relatives managed to collect the one million dollar face value, but it certainly managed to lure in a packed house.

One scene ,in particular, caused a few hesitations in my cardiac functions, despite the films generally boring overtones. One of the many false leads in the search for the missing child, led to a graveyard. An interrment was taking place during a dismal rainstorm,and the child supposedly was buried in the open grave. The camera was positioned up in the trees, as the would be rescuers dug frantically at the grave, rapidly filling with rainwater. As the coffin was unearthed and opened, the camera zoomed in for a closeup of the morbid contents, prompting ear splitting screams from the audience,and raising me out of my seat. Although only a partially melted wax doll, it did resemble a decomposing corpse.

This excellent use of the element of surprise and shock, made this ordinary film, memorable.