Haunted Honeymoon (1986) Orion Pictures/Comedy-Horror RT: 82 minutes Rated PG (brief language, mild violence, suggestive humor, comedic scary moments) Director: Gene Wilder Screenplay: Gene Wilder and Terence Marsh Music: John Morris Cinematography: Fred Schuler Release date: July 25, 1986 (US) Cast: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom DeLuise, Jonathan Pryce, Paul L. Smith, Bryan Pringle, Ann Way, Peter Vaughan, Jim Carter, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Eve Ferret, Julann Griffin, Jo Ross, Billy J. Mitchell, R.J. Bell, Will Kenton. Box Office: $8M (US)
Rating: **
Somewhere inside Haunted Honeymoon is a hysterically funny movie waiting to burst out and that director Gene Wilder (The Woman in Red) can’t seem to find the right groove comes as a big disappointment.
Haunted Honeymoon may be one of the most confused movie comedies of the 80s simply because it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be about. There are at least three different plot treads occurring simultaneously and although they eventually come together, they seem to be working against each other throughout most of the movie. The building blocks for a great broad farce are all here, but Wilder doesn’t know how to put them together. The 30s setting, a big spooky mansion, zany characters, a murderer running around, a random musical number, a couple of clever sight gags and a werewolf ….. it should have worked beautifully. Just imagine what Mel Brooks could have done with this. Wilder is a capable director, but he drops the ball here and it lands with a resounding thud (as do most of the gags).
Haunted Honeymoon hit theaters in summer ’86 and immediately bombed. By the second week, the number of theaters showing it had been reduced significantly. I saw it on a double bill with About Last Night. The usher (a friend from school) tried to talk me out of seeing it, but my love for movies knows no bounds. In hindsight, I should have heeded his warning. Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk, it’s 82 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. 82 minutes ….. hmmm, I wonder what was left on the cutting room floor. The world may never know.
Wilder plays radio actor Larry Abbott whose show, Manhattan Mystery Theater, is a smash hit. He’s about to marry his co-star Vickie Pearle (real life wife Radner) and life couldn’t be better. Or could it? Since he proposed to her, he’s been suffering on-air panic attacks and displaying strange behavior such as constantly asking if his tie is straight. There’s definitely something wrong and it needs to be nipped in the bud before the show’s sponsors fire him.
His Uncle Paul (Smith, Dune), a noted psychiatrist, shows up with an interesting proposal. Much like the cure for hiccups is a good scare; perhaps the best way to cure Larry of his problems is scaring him to death. He plans to do this over the weekend when the entire family gathers at Aunt Kate’s mansion in upstate New York (Stormville, NY) to celebrate Larry and Vickie’s wedding. Aunt Kate is played by Dom DeLuise (The Cannonball Run) for reasons that elude me as I can’t imagine who would want to see this actor in drag. When we first meet her, she has just changed her will and made Larry her sole heir, UNLESS something happens to him, in which case her money will be divided evenly among the rest of the family. She tells the lawyer this is to be kept confidential, but somebody else must know about it as somebody seems to be trying to kill Larry. Or is it just part of Uncle Paul’s plan? There’s also some business about a werewolf and a couple of dead bodies.
I’m confused. Is Haunted Honeymoon supposed to be a take on murder mysteries? Horror movies? Is it supposed to be a screwball farce featuring a bunch of idiots running around a spooky mansion? A homage to the golden age of radio entertainment? I really don’t know. I suspect the filmmakers don’t really know either. Then, the movie totally cops out with one of the biggest non-endings I’ve ever seen. It’s cheating, but at least it brings the mercifully short movie to an end.
Haunted Honeymoon contains just about every cliché associated with spooky mansion movies like the scary looking servants and paranormal occurrences (or are they?). There’s a cemetery on the premises. The relatives are a motley and shady bunch; one of them may be a murderer. Larry is repressing a traumatic childhood memory involving his mother. Ho-hum, we’ve seen it all before and better.
There are a few (very few!) mildly amusing sequences. Aunt Kate and Vickie belt out an impromptu version of “Ballin’ the Jack”. The butler (Pringle) gets the false impression that Vickie is hard of hearing and keeps bellowing in her face. As for the two amusing sight gags, I have to leave something for the potential viewer to see for him/herself, don’t I?
Does this mean that I recommend Haunted Honeymoon? No, not at all! It’s an astonishingly mediocre and unfunny exercise in horror comedy. I wanted to love this movie, but it’s so off the mark that it’s difficult to muster even a half-hearted smile. Both Wilder and Radner have done better. The Woman in Red is hilarious! I even liked Hanky Panky (1982). Dom DeLuise has also seen better days. The three of them are positively wasted here.
Like I said, it might have been better in the hands of a more assured filmmaker like Mel Brooks. Look at what he did with Young Frankenstein. There’s just too much going on here and yet there still doesn’t appear to enough material to sustain a feature film. Haunted Honeymoon isn’t quite a complete failure, but it’s still pretty dismal. There’s no need to bother with this one.
