Woodyanders Review of Will to Die

Will to Die (1971)

An enjoyably trashy horror murder mystery potboiler

[8/10 · 5 October 2006]

After a wealthy old geezer dies, his four greedy and no-count backstabbing kids get together at the family mansion so they can get their grubby paws on his sizable inheritance. Naturally, there's a catch: They all have to spend an entire week at the estate before they can collect the dough. Of course, a vicious killer starts brutally bumping folks off. Carl Monson's blunt direction fails to wring much tension from Eric Norden's trite, yet deliciously lurid script (a sleazy incest subplot is especially tasty), but does succeed in creating a compellingly seedy atmosphere and stages the murder set pieces with considerable go-for-it grisly gusto (said kill scenes include an axe to the noggin, a bullet to the head, an electrocution and a guy being stung to death by bees). The stand-out trash movie cast qualifies as another significant asset: Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue from "This Island Earth," rugged Western film perennial John Russell, the luscious Brooke Mills from "The Big Doll House, Buck Kartalian of "Planet of the Apes" (very funny and creepy as a masochistic butler), Richard Davalos from Jack Hill's "Pit Stop," and the ubiquitous John Carradine as the mean, overbearing patriarch of the extremely depraved and dysfunctional clan. The gritty, washed-out photography by Jack Beckett and Ben Rombouts, Jamie Mendoza-Nava's spooky'n'shuddery score, and the delectably hammy performances add immensely to the picture's oddly appealing and engrossing ratty charm. Entertaining low-grade junk.