Larry Abbot (Gene Wilder) and Vickie Pearle (Gilda Radner) are voice actors on a New York City radio mystery program in the 1930’s. The program is called Manhattan Mystery Theater. Larry and Vickie are also engaged to be married. Larry has been experiencing moments of forgetfulness and periods of panic mood swings and over-reacting emotions since the engagement. Vickie believes that Larry is just suffering from wedding jitters.
To be on the safe side, the producer (Don Fellows) and the program sponsor (Lou Hirsch) ask Larry’s uncle, Dr. Paul Abbot (Paul L. Smith) to look into the situation. Paul tells them that the upcoming wedding is the reason for Larry’s odd behavior and that his psyche has fractured due to some buried experience from his past brought to the forefront by nerves due his upcoming marriage. He then tells the producers that to cure him Larry needs to be scared to death, just like curing the hiccups.
The wedding is planned to be held at the palatial estate of Larry’s eccentric Aunt Kate (Dom DeLuise). Joining the festivities are Larry’s relatives, Charles (Jonathan Pryce) and his girlfriend, Sylvia (Eve Ferret), Susan (Jo Ross) and her husband, Montego (Jim Carter), Francis Abbot Sr. (Peter Vaughan), Francis Jr. (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) and Nora (Julann Griffin). As the guests arrive, Aunt Kate is finishing up changes to her will leaving everything to Larry. Should something happen to him, the will would revert back to everything being shared by the remaining family members. Kate wants the change kept secret, but doesn’t realize that someone is listening. This puts both Larry’s and Aunt Kate’s lives in danger.
Skulking around the estate is a werewolf (Will Kenton). Aunt Kate believes that the werewolf is a member of the family. She believes that her brother John was bitten by a werewolf and has passed the trait down to one of the relatives. It turns out that the werewolf is actually a hit man who was supposed to kill Larry. Instead the werewolf is killed because he mistakenly killed Francis Jr. who, as a cross dresser, had been wearing one of Aunt Kate’s dresses.
As the night progresses, Larry is haunted by Dr. Paul and other members of the family. Paul is unaware that one of the family members is playing for keeps and wants Larry dead in real life.
“Haunted Honeymoon” was released in 1986 and was directed by Gene Wilder. It is an American comedy horror film with old dark house elements. Wilder also co-wrote the screen play.
The movie has lots of stars in it and plays very much like other wacky comedies of the time such as “Clue” 1985 “Transylvania 6-5000” 1985 or even “Young Frankenstein” 1974. It is full of silly skits, slap-stick and satire. It’s not a bad movie but it is rather standard. There aren’t a lot of belly laughs but it is amusing. The plot of the film is zany and scattered with unnecessary characters and subplots. I’m not sure if they are red herrings or just plot threads to add more skits. The haunting cinematography is probably the best part of the film.
This was Gilda’s last film role before she died of ovarian cancer in 1989. Gilda and Gene were married from 1984 till her death. This was also the last film directed by Wilder.