It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Camp-it-up Hammer horror with Vincent Price on top form as a deranged actor who exacts stylishly horrible revenge on his critics. When he fails to win the Actor of the Year Award he takes a few leaves out of Shakespeare's books to bump off the judges one by one. Imaginatively over the top.