| Scared to Death | |
|---|---|
| |
| Riffed by | RiffTrax Presents |
| Riffers | Matthew J. Elliott, Ian Potter |
| Series | None |
| Date Released | August 4, 2014 |
Scared to Death is a 1947 not-quite horror film directed by Christy Cabanne and starring Bela Lugosi. The picture was filmed in Cinecolor. RiffTrax Presents released their riff in July 2014.
It is the second riff to feature the team of Matthew J. Elliott and Ian Potter, as well as Potter's overall second appearance. Their previous outing was King of Kong Island.
In 2019, a different movie with the title Scared to Death became a RiffTrax Presents production as part of the Bridget & Mary Jo series.
Plot Synopsis[]
Spoilers Begin
The film opens with the disclosure by morgue examiners that a beautiful woman has literally died of fright. The plot reveals how she reached the fatal stage of terror.
The woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage identified as the doctor's brother who formerly was a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf.
After it is apparent that the wife is terrified of the foreigners, it is disclosed that she is the former wife and partner of a Paris dancer known as René, who had been shot by the Nazis. Attempts to draw a confession that she had betrayed her dancer husband and had collaborated with the Nazis led to the use of a device employing a death mask of the dead patriot, which literally frightens her to death.
Although the young newspaperman hero and his sweetheart guess the answer to the story, they allow the diagnosis "scared to death" to stand.
Spoilers End
Cast and Crew[]
- Bela Lugosi as Prof. Leonide
- George Zucco as Dr. Joseph Van Ee
- Nat Pendleton as Bill Raymond
- Molly Lamont as Laura Van Ee / Laurette La Valle
- Joyce Compton as Jane Cornell
- Gladys Blake as Lilybeth
- Roland Varno as Ward Van Ee
- Douglas Fowley as Terry Lee
- Stanley Andrews as Pathologist
- Angelo Rossitto as Indigo
- Lee Bennett as Rene
- Stanley Price as Autopsy Surgeon
Quotes[]
Notes[]
- In his 2014 RiffWiki Interview, Matthew J. Elliott named this riff as one of his "picks."