Rich Mr. Hiram Stokely (Boris Karloff) is dead. His long dead girlfriend Cecily (Susan Hart) wakes him from his coffin. She’s been dead for some thirty odd years and hasn’t aged a day. Cecily tells him that in order for him to get to heaven he needs to perform a good deed in the next 24 hours. If he does he will also be given back his youth. The only problem is that he cannot leave the crypt. Cecily is there to do whatever he wants to help him complete his task. Stokely knows that his attorney Reginald Ripper (Basil Rathbone) is evil and will try to steal the estate from Stokely’s legal heirs. Stokely decides that his good deed will be to thwart Reginald and his minion J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White).
Stokely’s heirs. Chuck Phillips (Tommy Kirk), Lili Morton (Deborah Walley) and Myrtle Forbush (Patsy Kelly) arrive at Stokely’s old manor house. According to the will the beneficiaries must stay at the house until after the reading of the will which will happen at midnight. Putting another damper on Reginald’s plans is Myrtle’s nephew Bobby (Aron Kincaid). Or rather the bus load of teenagers he brought with him.
Not to be outdone, Reginald employs the services of his shapely but incredibly near-sighted daughter Sinistra (Quinn O’Hara) to deal with Bobby while Hulk employs a couple nit-wits named Chicken Feather (Benny Rubin) and Princess Yolanda (Bobbie Shaw Chance) along with their gorilla Monstro (George Barrows) to scare away the heirs and the assorted teens. Along with this menagerie are a stupid biker named Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his equally moronic gang of Malibu Rat Pack bikers. Toss in a few musical numbers and some singing by Nancy Sinatra and The Bobby Fuller Four to round things out.
“The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini” was released in 1966 and was directed by Don Weis. It is a low budget comedy/horror/musical by AIP.
It is the seventh and last of the “Beach Party” films done by AIP (American International Pictures). Beach Party films are a small sub-genre of films that were started in the sixties by AIP. All together there are only about thirty films in the genre. The movies are usually comedies with music, teenagers, gyration, a love story, bad plots, a bad guy or two and quite often Frankie Avalon and/or Annette Funicello. They do not necessarily have surfing.
When “Ghost” hit the box office it tanked. AIP then switched to stock car racing movies. Generally the last accepted movie into the sub-genre was “Catalina Caper” which was released in December 1967. Although some cite the English dubbed version of the Czechoslovakian film “Ski Fever” released in the U.S. in 1968.
The seven AIP Beach Party movies are: “Beach Party” 1963, “Muscle Beach Party” 1964, “Bikini Beach” 1964, “Pajama Party” 1964, “Beach Blanket Bingo” 1965, “How To Stuff a Wild Bikini” 1965 and “Ghost in the Invisible Bikini” 1966. AIP did other teen movies, some in other locations than beaches and some considered spin-offs or parodies of the Beach Party movie. All the major picture studios got on the bandwagon too. All of them have at least one beach party movie under their belts.
What makes “Ghost” different is the horror movie aspect of the film, such as it is. That plus Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff. As for the movie, it’s basically harmless stupid camp with a bunch of slapstick and a touch of Native American racism mixed in. Nothing cerebral here but then sometimes you don’t want “War and Peace” you just want to watch something silly. It’s a little sad to see this is where Karloff and Rathbone ended up. What really depresses me is that George Barrows the gorilla guy has a higher billing than the two horror movie icons. All you need to know is in the title. If you’re looking for bikini clad teens from the sixties romping around in a haunted house…here ya go.