House of the Long Shadows (1983)

Overview
"House of the Long Shadows" is a 1983 mystery-horror film directed by Pete Walker and produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. The motion picture is based on the 1913 unique "Seven Keys to Baldpate" by Earl Derr Biggers. The film is noteworthy for starring 4 icons of the horror genre - Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine, in among their most special screen cooperations.

Plot
The plot follows Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz, Jr.), an American author, who bets his publisher, Sam Allyson (Richard Todd), that he can write a gothic book within 24 hours. Sam provides Kenneth with an isolated Welsh manor deemed to be uninhabited and haunted so he might compose in solitude. As Kenneth settles in to write, he's disrupted by a series of unwelcome guests.

Characters
The first visitor is a senior caretaker named Elijah Grisbane (John Carradine), who introduces Kenneth to his eccentric family: his bro Lord Grisbane (Cushing), his sister Victoria (Sheila Keith), and his other sibling Corrigan (Price). A storm quickly traps everyone in the manor, consisting of another unforeseen visitor named Mary Norton (Julie Peasgood).

Not long after showing up, Grisbane household, with their sinister servant Mr. Crosby (Lee), exposes they collected to reenact a disturbing household ritual to atone for a terrible criminal offense committed by Elijah 40 years back. Mary, a real estate representative looking at the home, is traumatized by the unfolding occasions.

Twists and Reveals
As the night advances, the visitors begin passing away under mystical scenarios. The Grisbanes blame a "household curse", and Kenneth and Mary are thrust into fixing the mystery prior to they end up being victims also. The narrative is filled with horror elements, consisting of secret passages, graveyards, and family secrets.

In a significant twist, it is revealed that the occasions are part of a ruse orchestrated by Sam to get Kenneth to write a great novel. Most of the characters were stars employed by Sam, and the murders were staged. However, in an eerie gothic twist, the real Elijah Grisbane, who was presumed dead, reaches the denouement and savagely murders Sam while the rest escape.

Impact and Legacy
"House of the Long Shadows" is appreciated for its atmospheric and darkly humorous screenplay written by Michael Armstrong. The movie is likewise remembered for being the only partnership between Price, Lee, Cushing, and Carradine - a meeting of the legends of scary. Regardless of combined evaluations, it made a cult following since of the powerful performances of its quartet of scary masters. Their performances, the plot's twists, and the climatic locale clash to develop a fitting tribute to the traditional scary motion pictures of the 20th century.

As a blend of gothic mystery and metafictional humor, "House of the Long Shadows" efficiently encapsulates the essence of the eerie, gothic-era scary category in its atmospheric storytelling, all the while also talking about the process of storytelling and the nature of horror fiction itself.

Top Cast