Haunted Honeymoon (1986)

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The late thirties/early forties were an odd time for entertainment. While television was still a decade or so away, most people sat around their radios, listening to drama and comedy shows. And what does this have to do with this week's episode?

EVERYTHING.

Jake couldn't make it for this episode, so it was just Derek and Larry sitting down to watch the Gene Wilder-directed comedic thriller, Haunted Honeymoon.

Gene Wilder is Larry Abbot, star of a popular radio program, along with his fiancee, Vickie Pearle (Gilda Radner). The two of them are finishing one more episode of the show before heading to Larry's childhood home, a giant mansion owned by his Aunt Kate (Dom DeLuise), to be married.

Passion explodes across the screen!

But Larry has some...problems. He is obsessed with making sure his tie is straight, and he gets super-nervous when he sees and hears lightning and thunder. So much so, in fact, that even the sound effects of the show cause him to get a little loopy while on the air. But just as the producer (Don Fellows) is about to remove him, Dr. Paul Abbot (Paul L. Smith) arrives and tells them he can cure Larry by scaring him "to death" in just thirty-six hours. The producer agrees, and lets Larry finish the show.

Arriving later at the mansion, Larry and Vickie are greeted by the butler, Pfister (Bryan Pringle), who does not recognize Larry, and is convinced Vickie is hard-of-hearing, causing him to yell everything directly into her ear. Pfister takes them to their rooms, and they unpack. While putting his clothes away, Larry discovers a cobra in his dresser and is found by Vickie and Larry's Uncle Francis, sitting atop a moose head mounted on the wall. Francis investigates the dresser and finds a stuffed snake.

Bryan Pringle's eyebrows should have got their own credit.

Before this, Francis is meeting with Kate to discuss her will, as she believes she will be dead soon, possibly by the werewolf she believes is lurking around on the property. She informs Francis that because Larry has always been her favorite, he will get all of her money and property when she dies. If he dies before Kate does, her money will be divided evenly among the family.

More relatives begin arriving for the wedding. Montego (Jim Carter), as magician, is accompanied by his wife Susan (Jo Ross). Montego has a gambling problem, and he leads a pretty lavish lifestyle, so he has a motive to kill Larry. Also joining the party are Larry's cousin, Charles (Jonathan Price) and Charles's wife, Sylvia (Eve Ferret), who has an intense fondness for Larry, which gives Charles a motive to kill Larry. Of course, all of these people are a part of Dr. Abbot's plan--with the exception of Vickie, who is not recruited because there is a concern that she might give it away to Larry.

The gang's all here...FOR MURDER! (Not really.)

During dinner that evening, Kate tells everyone about the werewolf, and announces that she believes it may be one of the people there. She also mentions another cousin, Francis, Jr. (Roger Ashton-Griffiths), and suggests he may be up to something himself, as one of Kate's dressed are missing, and Francis, Jr. has something of a history.

Having suitably freaked everybody out, particularly Larry, Kate announces how much more she likes Vickie than the others' wives, and then , after dessert and a quick musical number, everybody retires for the evening. Larry walks Vickie to her room, trying the whole time to casually suggest she come visit him in the evening, should she get lonely. He then heads to his own room, only to be intercepted by a still-lustful Sylvia, who is herself interrupted by Vickie, who knew Sylvia was going to pull something like that. Sylvia goes back to her room with Charles, and Larry goes to his own room.

Once changed into his pajamas, Larry crawls into bed without noticing the body of his dead cousin, Francis, Jr., in the bed next to him. When he does notice, he believes it to be Vickie, and this leads to a scene that may or may not have ended up with inadvertent necrophilia, Larry almost being killed, and then putting his fingers in a "monster's" nose and mouth. It's super gross.

The actions of a completely sane man.

As the evening continues, things begin to get more dangerous, and Larry starts to notice more and more that there might be something suspicious going on that could possibly mean he is not a werewolf. But really, there's too much more to go into that could give away the ending, which is not something we're willing to do here. We will however, ask you this: What's the deal with cousin Francis? Is he dead or not? Who actually is the werewolf? Will Larry survive to be married the next day? And why is he freaking out about such odd things?

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek has two surprising revelations, one of which could mean that the entire premise of the movie was either an afterthought, or a gigantic middle finger to the studio or the genre(s) this movie is meant to be poking fun at. It's pretty funny to him either way.

Larry is in love with this film, which has been in his regular viewing rotation for years. He, too, makes a stunning revelation while they are recording, discovering something about the story itself that he had not been able to figure out before, and it raises his opinion of the film even higher.

So light up an astoundingly bright candle, gather round the gigantic old-timey radio, and check out this week's episode!