General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Haunted Honeymoon

Haunted Honeymoon is a 1986 American comedy horror film directed and co-written by Gene Wilder, starring Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom DeLuise, and Jonathan Pryce. Wilder plays Larry Abbot, a radio horror actor who, beset by panic attacks and speech problems after getting engaged, is taken to his family's country mansion for a shock cure that goes wrong when his aunt names him her sole heir.¹^•² The film was released by Orion Pictures on July 25, 1986, and was both a commercial and critical failure, though it has retained a modest following on home video.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Release	July 25, 1986 (wide), by Orion Pictures; 82 minutes; rated PG³
Director and writers	Gene Wilder (director and co-writer) with Terence Marsh¹
Lead cast	Gene Wilder as Larry Abbot, Gilda Radner as Vickie Pearle, Dom DeLuise as Aunt Kate, Jonathan Pryce as Charles, Paul L. Smith as Dr. Paul Abbot⁵
Box office	$8.0 million domestic gross; opening weekend $2,768,003 in 1,046 theaters³
Reception	9% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (11 reviews); 5.7/10 on IMDb²^•⁶
Notable outcomes	DeLuise won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress; the film was Radner's last feature appearance and Wilder's last directorial role¹
Filming	Elstree Studios, London, September 9 to December 2, 1985; mansion exteriors at Knebworth House⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Larry Abbot and Vickie Pearle are the stars of Manhattan Mystery Theater, a radio horror program; the film opens inside one of their broadcasts, with Larry playing a suspected werewolf and Vickie his fiancée.⁷ After the couple announces their engagement, Larry develops speech problems and debilitating on-air panic attacks.² To wed her, he brings his bride-to-be to the family castle of his childhood, where his oddball relatives live, and his uncle resolves to treat the young man's nervous stammer and extreme panic attacks by subjecting him to shock treatment staged with ghosts from the palace.⁸

The treatment becomes dangerous when Aunt Kate names Larry her sole heir. All at once, the whole household appears unusually eager to join in his treatment, and Larry starts to suspect that a jealous relative might be out to kill him, while a different one might be a werewolf.⁹ The story closes with a twist: back at the radio station, the play for the whole story ends, revealing that it was a radio play, as the male actor playing Aunt Kate delivers the final monologue to close the broadcast.¹⁰^•¹⁴

Production

The project had a long gestation. A September 14, 1981 Los Angeles Herald-Examiner article reported that Wilder received negative criticism from a friend who read seventy-two pages of his early script; when the friend felt autobiographical aspects weighed down the screenplay, Wilder backed away from the project, and Twentieth Century Fox president Sherry Lansing announced the studio would no longer be attached.⁷ Wilder later bought the remake rights to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1940 comedy-mystery Haunted Honeymoon, the U.S. release of Busman's Honeymoon based on the stage play by Dorothy L. Sayers, with Radner stepping into the role originated by Constance Cummings and Wilder taking the role played by Robert Montgomery.⁷^•¹

According to production notes in the AMPAS library files, Wilder aimed to make a thirties-era film for 1986, using color while suggesting black-and-white-style photography. He cited James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) as an influence, and said that at a dinner with Dom DeLuise, the actor launched into an uncanny impersonation of Ethel Barrymore in The Spiral Staircase (1945), which inspired Wilder to create Aunt Kate, the odd, eighty-three-year-old matriarch of a bizarre family.⁷

Principal photography began September 9, 1985 in London and was completed December 2, 1985 after a twelve-week shoot on closed sets at Elstree Studios. The filmmakers searched the American East Coast, then England and Scotland, before settling on Knebworth House, an hour from London; the home, built in 1492 and owned by the Lytton family, had gargoyles, griffins, and slender towers added during the Victorian era, which the production notes credited with providing the right Gothic atmosphere.⁷ The crew included composer John Morris, cinematographer Fred Schuler, editor Christopher Greenbury, and producer Susan Ruskin; Terence Marsh served as both co-writer and production designer.¹¹

Release and reception

Orion Pictures released the film wide on July 25, 1986, in 1,046 theaters.³ It earned $2,768,003 on opening weekend, 34.5 percent of its total domestic gross of $8.0 million.³ Sources disagree on the budget: the Google Play description says the film flopped by grossing just short of its $9 million budget, while Plex lists a budget of US$13 million.¹^•⁸

Critics panned the film. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 9% Tomatometer from 11 reviews against a 53% Popcornmeter audience score from more than 5,000 ratings.² Walter Goodman of The New York Times wrote, "No laughs there, and no screams either."² A Time Out review called it "flat, unfunny, and full of slavish borrowings," judging that Wilder, unlike Mel Brooks with Young Frankenstein, "gets his fingers burnt" playing with the horror genre.¹² The film earned DeLuise the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress, and it represents the last feature film appearance for Radner and the last directorial role for Wilder.¹

Later availability

Kino Lorber released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on September 6, 2016, newly remastered in HD, and licenses it for theatrical and educational screenings.³^•⁹ The film's composer, John Morris, had also scored Wilder's Young Frankenstein (1974).¹³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Satirical, black, and parody comedies of the 1980s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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