Frankenstein met the Wolfman, and they both met Abbott and Costello, so why shouldn't country music greats Ferlin Husky and Merle Haggard meet Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney, Jr? No reason a'tall. I was hoping for a real hoedown here, even though I'm not sure what a hoedown is. Well, actually, a hoedown seems to be a "square dance." At least that's what the Merriam Webster link on my toolbar came up with, in which case a hoedown isn't what I was hoping for, after all. A Ferlin Husky-Lon Chaney, Jr. duet on a country classic, perhaps "Your Cheatin' Heart," or something else from the pen of Hank Williams, would have been nice, but, alas, it was not to be. As a result, "Hillbillies in a Haunted House" fails to live up to its considerable potential. I suppose that for Basil Rathbone, who would die in the year of this film's release, appearing in this movie is no worse than doing an infomercial for a Helsinki baldness cure, which is what aged, down on their luck actors seem to do these days, although it would have been nice to see the screen's greatest Sherlock Holmes go out with more style than is evident here.
