However, the Powers that Be have a few ground rules for the recently deceased doing good deeds; the stickler being that Hyrum can’t leave the crypt. (By this time, Karloff wasn’t moving very fast so this plot convenience is both understandable and forgivable.) Not a problem: whatever calls for a supernatural intervention, Cicely will take care of it. With that obstacle cleared, Hyrum then gazes into his fully functional crystal ball and introduces us to his three heirs: two youngsters, Chuck Phillips and Lily Norton (Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley), and his only living relative, an old crackpot named Myrtle Forbush (Patsy Kelly), as they make their way to his secluded mansion for the reading of the will. He also spies Ripper conspiring with J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White) to bump them all off and take the loot, confirming Hyrum's worst suspicions of the crooked lawyer...

If you're still with us, their end results, tentatively titled Beach Party in a Haunted House, turned out to be such an incoherent mess that a drastic decision was made to blow the whole thing up for a massive re-edit, and, to top that off, additional scenes were shot -- namely the entire subplot of Cicely's ghost helping out Hyrum -- to try and salvage it. That's right: the actual ghost in the invisible bikini came about completely after the film was in the can! Actress Susan Hart was brought in, donned a black bikini, and spent several days shooting with Karloff in the crypt (-- the entire opening sequence in the graveyard was lifted wholesale from The Haunted Palace), but spent the majority of her time cavorting around a black backdrop; destined to be superimposed into the finished footage in a desperate attempt to explain away all the plot-holes and inconsistencies.

Did it work? Well, judge for yourselves...

When the three unsuspecting heirs meet at Stokely’s allegedly haunted mansion, after Ripper escorts them all inside, Myrtle tries to perform a séance; but as she tries to contact Hyrum, they're interrupted by a flying knife -- that barely misses Lily’s head! A note attached to the blade reads: "Those who remain tonight won’t live to see tomorrow." That’s enough for Lily, who tries to leave, but Chuck talks her into staying by reminding her if any recipient isn't present at the reading of the will, they forfeit their share. And since the will is to be read later, at the stroke of midnight, with time to kill -- maybe that's a bad choice of words -- the group tries the séance again, but this time a falling chandelier almost crushes them.

It was Hulk who threw the knife out of one of the mansion's many secret doors and passageways, but it was the eavesdropping Cicely who accidentally jarred the chandelier loose. I think. Anyways...

With each passing calamity and near miss, Chuck grows more suspicious that someone must be trying to scare them off -- and doing a good job of it, too, according to Lily. Then their attention is drawn outside, where a large, double-decker bus crammed with displaced beachniks loudly invades the mansion -- including Myrtle’s nephew, Bobby (Aaron Kincaid), his girlfriend, Vicki (Nancy Sinatra), the Bob Fuller Four (-- all together now -- "I fought the law and the -PAUSE- law won…") and about fifty others, who hit the pool, as we get our first song so the jerks can do The Monkey.

Speaking of monkeys, the rest of Hulk’s henchmen -- Chicken Feather (Benny Dubin), Yolanda (Bobbi Shaw) and Monstro, her pet gorilla -- are lost out on the road, somewhere, and can’t find Stokely’s mansion. (Monstro is played by Ro-Man, himself, George Barrows -- in the same gorilla costume destined to be used in American International's Konga.) And when they cross paths with the dastardly Erik Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his outlaw biker gang of Ratz and Mice, they all wind up in a lake (-- don’t ask). After Yolanda saves him from drowning, Von Zipper falls madly in love with her and decides to follow the blonde to the ends of the earth -- but at a safe distance, since she clearly doesn't want anything to do with him.

Back at the mansion, as Chuck and Lily form a mutual partnership to watch each other’s back in the garden, outside at the pool, after a rousing game of Ring-a-ma-thing (-- it'll be bigger than the hula-hoop! And could this be the first case of blatant product placement in film? --) winds down, Ripper introduces Bobby to his daughter, Sinistra (Quinn O’Hara), and Sinistra's deep cleavage and good looks are matched only by her evil intentions. Luring Bobby into the mansion for an arsenic highball, luckily for him, without her glasses, she’s as blind as a bat, and with a little help from Cicely, Sinistra inadvertently feeds the toxic concoction to a suit of armor. (Whose screams sound suspiciously like the giant arachnid in Earth vs. the Spider.)

After night falls, Von Zipper and his gang clandestinely follow Hulk and his cronies through a secret entrance into the mansion. Elsewhere, as they're still wondering around the garden, when Stokely’s old butler (Francis X Bushman) tries to warn the young heirs of Ripper's treachery, they think he’s just trying to scare them off, too. And as soon as they’re gone, Ripper silences him forever ... With midnight fast approaching, the myopic Sinistra blows yet another attempt to cull Bobby from the herd and kill him. And while The Bob Fuller Four serenades the lonely Vicki by the pool, a storm whips up, chasing everyone inside, just as the clock strikes twelve. When the heirs gather, Ripper breaks the seal, and according to the will, Stokely’s fortune is to be split equally among them. However, there's a catch: nobody knows where the money is, and their only clue is that it's somewhere inside the mansion and to "Look to the prince of love." Being it’s so late, before they start tearing up the mansion, Ripper suggests that they all turn in and get a fresh start in the morning. After the rest agree and head off to bed, Ripper opens a secret room and then, well -- rips into his hired help for not doing their job. Overhearing all of this, Von Zipper plots to find the loot for himself.

When Chuck and Bobby decide to bunk together, Hulk tries several times to scare them off; but each time, only Bobby sees him. And as his friend helplessly spazzes out, Chuck leaves to check on Lily. After he's gone, his nerves already shattered, Bobby finds another monster in his bed and freaks out so bad he wakes everyone else up. (One should note that the monster is one of Larry Buchanan’s the the Eye Creatures making a cameo appearance.) Meanwhile, outside in the rain, Monstro escapes his cage and makes his way inside, where Chuck is trying to calm everyone down. Swearing that his bunkmate just had a bad nightmare, after he convinces everyone else to go back to bed, Chuck is talked into at least calling the police by a desperate Bobby. When he leaves to find a phone, alone again, Bobby barely escapes Monstro’s attack.

Lily, however, isn’t so lucky. Caught alone in her bedroom, she faints, and then Monstro carries her off into a secret passage that leads down into Hyrum's basement, where his ghastly Chamber of Horrors awaits. Also managing to tunnel his way into the dungeon while looking for the lost loot, Von Zipper mistakes Monstro for another wax display dummy and yanks out some hairs to prove to the others its a fake. As Von Zipper realizes his error too late, the ape goes berserk; and as his gang scatters, their Leader runs for his life with the gorilla hot on his leather-booted heels. (Try giving him the finger! No! Not that finger.)

Upstairs, Hulk, Chicken Feather and Yolanda are convinced that the mansion really is haunted -- and it truly is, because Cicely has been foiling all their assassination attempts and playing tricks on them all day. But when they try to leave, Ripper and his revolver force them to stay. Herding them toward the secret passage entrance to investigate all the noises downstairs, they trip the door and head down -- not realizing Bobby saw and heard the whole thing.

Down in the basement, the bad guys find Lily just as she wakes up. They bind and gag her, and then lash her to a log on an old sawmill display with a working buzz-saw. Once she's secured, Ripper throws the switch, dispatching the girl to her doom! And as she slowly inches closer to the blade, Chuck, Bobby and the others find the dungeon. At first, Ripper and the others try to pass themselves off as wax dummies until Bobby discovers that one of them is breathing, and then the inevitable slapstick fight breaks out ... As the battle goes back and forth, the gears on the buzz saw ride are switched from forward to reverse about fifty times. Luckily, with some inadvertent help from Sinistra, the bad guys are thwarted, Lily is saved in the nick of time, and the money is found with Cupid’s statue pointing the way. (Eureka! Look to the Prince of Love.)

Defeated, Ripper pulls a gun, thinking if he can't have the money -- then no one can. But Cicely plugs the barrel just as he fires, and the gun explodes, sending Ripper to his great reward. And with that, Hyrum Stokely accomplishes his good deed and gets to go to heaven with Cicely. Everybody becomes friends, the band sets up in the dungeon and begins to wail, and then the monkeys do The Jerk as the credits roll.

Okay, despite the imminent, camp-induced cerebral hemorrhage, I will now attempt to spill my thoughts about this film through my keyboard without throwing a neural rod. (Oy! This is going to hurt.) The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini was the seventh and, with the disappointing box-office returns, the last of American International's Beacy Party movies. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie a lot -- hell, I admit to liking all of AIP's Beach Party canon with no shame whatsoever -- but the sad thing is, it could have been a lot better. The terror the promotional material promises is practically non-existent and the comedy is very low-brow; but you can see the beginnings of a campy style that was about to explode on TV with a certain caped crusader, and is well worth your time if you have a penchant or the patience for such things.

As I said before, Frankie and Annette were long gone and their replacements, Tommy Kirk, and the quite possibly too cute for words Deborah Walley, aren't given a whole lot to do, and therefore, are remarkably absent for the majority of the film. In fact, Walley's longest contribution was her Perils of Pauline riff on the buzzsaw ride during the climax. Making up for their absence is the return of one of my favorite characters, Erik Von Zipper. I tell ya, Harvey Lembeck's odd combination of Brando’s Wild One and all Three Stooges never fails to crack me up. I especially love the way he's always yelling and smacking his gang around, and how he always manages to give himself the finger. (No, not that finger, the Himalayan Suspenders Treatment Finger.) And between him, Karloff, Rathbone, Kelly and the other, older players, they all appear to be having more fun than their younger co-stars. But the real star of the film is Stokely’s Mansion, with its intricate design and myriad secret passageways that director Weis put to good use. 

If I ever win the lottery, it’s a sure bet that my Casa de Romper Room will be filled with trapdoors, sliding panels and a Chamber of Horrors -- complete with damsel and buzz-saw ride.

Music was always an integral part of any Beach Party movie, and the tunes in Ghost aren't all that bad as The Bob Fuller Four joins The Pyramids and The Hondells by doing a competent job of filling Dick Dale and the Del-Tone's shoes. Still a few months away from her big hits, Nancy Sinatra chimes in with "Geronimo" -- but Quinn O’Hara steals her thunder with a sexy and sultry rendition of "Don’t fight it Baby" while trying to seduce Kincaid.

Putting all those ingredients into a tumbler, the resulting mixed-drink is tasty enough but just seems to be missing something. And with each swig, you have to wonder if Hulk, Yolanda and Chicken Feather were former, disgruntled circus employees of Stokely. Was the man an avid hunter? as each room in the house has about five dead animals in it, which really gets weird when you remember he used to run a circus. GAH! And just where the hell did Monstro go, anyway? And then the room starts to go dark as I chuckle at all the sniping Karloff lays on Rathbone. Luckily for you, my brain has slipped it’s clutch and I’m just grinding gears now. As for AIP, they quickly popped the clutch and switched gears, rather drastically, when only a few months later they took another gamble that paid off with the release of The Wild Angels, and officially closed the book on the beach and turned in their surfboards and bikinis for some chrome and hot leather.