It’s Ghostville, baby!
Schlock master William Castle is known for making audiences scared, but did you know that he could also leave them screaming with laughter? It’s true, and 1967’s The Spirit Is Willing proves it! Just by looking at the movie’s poster — which features a tagline declaring it to be “the first picture to face the biggest problem of our time: the sex life of ghosts — you get a sense that you aren’t in for the regular Castle experience, but something altogether more goofy. The picture stars Sid Caesar and Vera Miles as a married couple who, along with teenage son Barry Gordon, rent a beautiful old house in a sleepy New England seaside town with hopes of having a summer packed with plenty of rest and recreation. Unfortunately for them, the residence is also home to a trio of ghosts who don’t appreciate the human interlopers interfering with their own lazy time. And so the silly spirits embark on a mission to pull of the craziest pranks ever seen in this life or the next, giving a look at how the deceased live, life, and, uh, love along the way.
The movie was released by Paramount Pictures in July of 1967, but really, it plays so much better the closer it gets to October. That is to say that you’ve got plenty of time to add it to your spooky viewing lists in advance of Halloween next month. Might we suggest pairing it with Mad Monster Party for a terrific vintage horror-comedy double feature?