Just caught it on AMC, and my question is, after 30 years of valiant (and not-so-valiant attempts) will anyone ever be able to do a real Lovecraft movie? The main problem seems to be that most of the Lovecraft stories are just vignettes, heavy on narration, light on action. (The Night Gallery episode "Pickman's Model" probably comes closest to the format) While ReAnimator is terrific, it relies heavily on humor, which is mostly absent from Lovecraft's prose. The main problem with Die Monster Die is that coming from the Corman Camp, it tries to hard to Poe-ify the source material and it becomes just another crazy-old-man-hiding-a-secret-in-the-old-dark-house story. Karloff gives a good performance, but you can see how badly his health was affecting him by the time this was filmed. All in all, it could be worse. (see '87's The Curse, and its non-sequels for evidence)
Review of Die, Monster, Die!
