Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Good idea lost in the noise

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Let's Kill Uncle (1966) * 1/2 (out of 4)The more work I see from William Castle the more I'm starting to realize that without Vincent Price or another star then the director struggled quite a bit. I don't think it's his direction that really killed everything he was involved in but there's no question that he was doing some rather strange movies during this period of his career. In the film, young Barbaby (Pat Cardi) has $5 million left to him after his father died in a car crash. He goes to an island to live with his WW2 vet uncle (Nigel Green) and soon the boy realizes that his uncle is trying to kill him for the money. Barnaby and a female friend (Mary Badham) decide the best thing to do is just kill the uncle first. Three years prior to this film Castle made 13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS!, which was a strange mix of Nancy Drew and Cold War but the strangest thing about that film is that it put young girls in violence and sexual situations and I really wondered who in their right mind would want to watch a film like that. I felt the same way with this thing because who wants to watch a childish film about an uncle wanting to kill this kid or having the tables turned and the two kids killing the uncle? Castle brings a very childish tone to the entire film and for the life of me I couldn't figure out who he was making this thing for. Adults are going to be bored out of their minds and wondering why they're watching a movie about kids being targets and kids are simply going to hit the stop button within a few minutes of the film starting. I'm sure some would defend the light story and the simple direction but to me the thing had a very bad pace and it just never picked up any steam as it went along. The horror elements are basically a deformed cripple guy, some spiders and a swimming pool with a shark in it. Not very scary. None of the performances are all that impressive either with Green going way over the top and not making a for a very interesting character. Cardi is extremely bland in his part and at times he's so annoying that you'll be rooting for the uncle. Badham is best known for her work in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and this would be her last film until 2005. LET'S KILL UNCLE is pretty rare in terms of Castle's work and there's a good reason that this thing is still sitting in a vault.

Young Barnaby Harrison's (Pat Cardi) father has died in a car crash--and Barnaby is set to inherit 5 million dollars. Barnaby's uncle Kevin (Nigel Green) is next in line and is prepared to kill Barnaby to get the money. The two are stuck on an island and try everything they can do to kill one another. By the way--this is aimed at kids!! I never caught this as a kid on TV like most people seem to have. I can see how a kid might enjoy this cause it's FAR too silly to take seriously and some of the "games" are fun (in a sick sort of way). Seeing it as an adult I found it slow, stupid and somewhat disturbing about having a movie where an adult is trying to kill a kid whose father has just died! To make it worse it throws in an ending which comes out of nowhere and renders the entire film pointless. This only gets a 2 because Cardi, Green and Mary Badham (as Chrissie) aren't that bad in their roles. But this is a pretty sick and dull little item that is almost impossible to see today--for good reason!

William Castle was losing touch with his audience around this time and the cheap and efficient producer side of him was clearly winning over the carny style director side of him.The concept of a black comedy geared for kids was a bit novel but Pat Cardi is just too annoying as the little boy and some of the plot devices and effects are real eyeball rollers even for a vintage Castle movie.Nigel Green clearly knows what he's doing and refuses to play down to the material.It may seem like he's going over the top at times but his character is supposed to enjoy outwitting and doing away with the boy that stands in the way of his inheritance.As others have stated the scenes with the shark in the pool are pure hokum guaranteed to illicit peals of laughter as they shift from one scene of a rubbery fin by the diving board to an old and grainy shot of a shark in the ocean.The basic concept of who's killing who? Child or adult? could be remade quite effectively today but this is largely a flop, Stick with The TIngler Or House On Haunted Hill.

One of Castle's oddest entries concerns an orphaned boy who is due to get an inheritance. However, his evil uncle has plans to kill the boy before he can collect. Between the boy and a girl he meets on the island where he's staying with friends, they cook up a plan to thwart the uncle's plans. There is a long sequence near the end involving hypnotism, a shark and a pool that is too strange for words.