Yes, Morrissey fans this is where he got it from… Although quite what the Salford warbler’s feelings are about director William Castle, have sadly never been put on record.

As for me, I happen to think that Herr Schloss (to use his original, German birth name) is the quintessential “Halloween” filmmaker because, if you think about it, October 31st stands first and foremost for getting a bit spooked and having a lot of fun, and William Castle pretty much devoted his entire career to that cause. After all, Castle is the man who became - an admittedly rather low-rent - Hollywood legend for the imaginative and utterly OTT ways he would promote his low-budget horror films in the 50s and early 60s. There were the free life insurance policies for Macabre… The inflatable, glow-in-the-dark skeleton that swung out across the auditorium during House on Haunted Hill… And, my personal favourite, the full refund offered to patrons who found Homicidal just too scary (of course, many cinemagoers just took this as an easy chance to get their money back, something which irked Castle no end!).

Let’s Kill Uncle was made just a little bit after the schlockmeister extraordinaire was in his gimmicky pomp, but while it’s cinema release was sadly lacking a hokey, harebrained selling point, it is just as much spooky, kooky fun as anything else William Castle ever put his name to. The disarmingly bizarre plot sees the orphaned heir to a multi-million dollar fortune forced to relocate to a tropical island to live with his ex-British serviceman uncle (the brilliant Nigel Green), who unexpectedly intends to murder his grieving nephew in order to get his hands on the cash. Luckily enough for the plucky lad, uncle is a good sport and decides to tell him all about his dastardly plan first, and thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse.

William Castle is one of my all-time favourite horror film directors, even without his trademark gimmick-ery (and anyone intrigued by this would do well to check out Joe Dante’s 1993 film Matinee – essentially a biopic of Castle). His films always seem to exude an uneasy but highly effective mixture of American schmaltz and authentic, threatening horror, and Let’s Kill Uncle is a case in point. One moment it pads along like an episode of The Brady Bunch, and the next it veers into something infinitely more sinister and less wholesome – even if this film does play out like a deliciously burlesque proto-Home Alone, it is a certainty that it is too creepy and near-the-knuckle to be made today… Although it’s none the worse off for that, of course!

Please check out Saturday Night Fever director John Badham reminiscing about Let’s Kill Uncle (on which he served as a casting director) in the clip - from the superb Trailers From Hell website – below.

Tags halloween horror let's kill uncle spooky film of the day william castle