The Comedy of Terrors is a 1963[1] American International Pictures horror comedy film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Joe E. Brown (in a cameo performance that also serves as his final film appearance).

It is a blend of comedy and horror that features several cast members from Tales of Terror, a 1962 film also released by AIP.

The corrupt owner of a funeral parlor murders clients to increase his business and tries to bury his landlord alive.

In the New England town of New Gilead during the late 19th century, unscrupulous drunkard Waldo Trumbull runs a funeral parlor that he acquired from his former business partner Amos Hinchley.

They repeatedly reuse the firm's only coffin to save money and murder wealthy residents to increase business.

Gillie is in love with Amaryllis and ineptly tries to seduce her, but she remains faithful to Trumbull, who wastes money on alcohol while his business is dwindling.

When threatened with eviction by his landlord John F. Black for overdue rent, Trumbull murders a wealthy shipping magnate and offers the heirs funeral services.

A physician pronounces him dead, despite a servant's warning him that Black has previously suffered bouts of death-like sleep.

The film was a follow-up to The Raven, meant to reunite Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff.

[7] In the original draft all the main characters died but AIP asked Matheson to rewrite it so Lorre and Jameson ended up together.

Ours was extremely adult.... [O]ur film was deliberately aimed at the mature thinking people who appreciate satire, who appreciate cynical humor — therefore it was completely lost on the kids who were looking for horror and they didn’ get it.”[5] The Comedy of Terrors received mixed to negative reviews upon its initial release.

Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote a scathing review, calling it a "musty, rusty bag of tricks rigged as a horror farce.

The raw material for a jovial spoof of chillers was there, but the comic restraint and perception necessary to capitalize on those natural resources is conspicuously missing.

I felt ashamed to watch once reputable actors hamming it up all over the place, making a mockery of whatever is left of their poor images.

"[13] The Monthly Film Bulletin was somewhat positive, calling Price and Lorre "both splendid" and writing that Matheson's script "avoids the laxness which slowed down passages of The Raven, and constructs a soundly worked-out mechanism based on a minimum of running gags.