Die, Monster, Die! is a 1965 Sci-Fi Horror film directed by Daniel Haller and starring Boris Karloff. The film is a very, very loose adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out of Space".
Stephen Reinhart arrives in Arkham, England, to visit his fiancée, Susan Whitley. Once there, he notices strange things about the estate and the inhabitants - especially her father, Nahum (Karloff). Not helping matters is the mysterious disappearances and deaths occurring on the property, and strange sightings of unusual glowing light coming from the greenhouse.
As answers are being dug up and strange individuals hound them, Stephen and Susan have to uncover the truth behind the suspicious activities of her father and find out the cause of the horrors on the troubled estate.
...though, that's easier said than done when whatever is afflicting the Whitley estate takes effect on Nahum's mind.
Trope, Monster, Trope!:
- Campbell Country: A variation as it's set in an Arkham that's in England rather than America.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: Dell Comics did a Movie Classic.
- The Corruption: The meteorite corrupts living beings, as in the novel.
- Fantastic Nature Reserve: Nahum Whitley has a menagerie of monsters that were animals mutated by radiation. As Reinhart puts it: "It looks like a zoo in Hell!".
- Giant Food: The greenhouse is full of plants grown huge, including basketball-sized tomatoes.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: As one might expect, Nahum's experiments get a bit out of hand... and his wife is affected, too.
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: A punk band actually named themselves after this movie.
- Haunted House: The Witley estate, of course. With fog and cursed land. And don't even think to ask Arkham's people about Witley. It is so sumptuous that it could almost qualify as a Haunted Castle.
- Its exterior is Oakley Court, which has this role in a few other horror movies.
- It Runs in the Family: Not only Nahum (Susan's father) but even Corbin Witley (Susan's grandfather) went insane.
- Mad Scientist: Here Nahum tries to fit in the trope, willingly experimenting with the unknown radiation from the meteorite, to mutate plant life. There will be some side effects...
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Susan. Beautiful and sweet.
- Magic Meteor: A radioactive meteorite mutates animals and plants.
- Market-Based Title: Was called Monster of Terror in Britain.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Nahum's reaction when he sees what happens to his wife, Letitia. At that point he even tries to redeem himself. Being the character played by Boris Karloff, it's easy to guess how this works out.
- Pink Means Feminine: Susan entering the scene: everything she wears is of some degree of pink.
- Reluctant Mad Scientist: Nahum Witley was using a radioactive meteor to try and grow bigger vegetables rather than make monsters.
- Sanity Slippage: Anyone who is exposed to the radiation of the meteorite not only suffers physical disfigurement, but also lose their minds in the process.
- Town with a Dark Secret: The Witley Place, where a scientist is using radiation to create monsters.
- Volcanic Veins: Green glowing veins lace Nahum's hands and face when he's overcome by the meteor's radiation.
