Aka Lady of the Shadows, The Castle of Terror, and The Haunting. Many a year ago — too many for us to want to admit to here — in our formative years we came home late from Lyles-Crouch Elementary one day and thus caught but the ending of the movie on Channel 20's Creature Feature (hosted by the great Count Gore de Vol,* who didn't write Myra Breckenridge). Not much on stars' names or faces at that age, we knew who Boris Karloff was — who didn't? — but the other faces were all unknown to us back then... but then, as we only caught the last minutes of the movie, no face other than one had a chance of making an impression on us. And the face that did, that of the pretty girl carried out of the flooding basement by the good guy, only impressed us because right after the guy kissed her, it melted away in B&W gooey messiness. (Yes, Virginia, people used to have B&W television sets.) It added, needless to say, a whole new aspect to the ickiness of kissing girls that we hadn't even yet conceived — and that we also luckily forgot when we started getting fuzz on our danglers.
Whatever. In any event, the scene did forever remain ingrained in our minds, though the title of the movie did not — but now we know, as of last night, and as many reading this may have guessed, that the ending that we caught that day belonged to the legendary Roger Corman production, The Terror. And while the face that melted is perhaps mostly unknown today (as when the movie was made), that of the heroic lad doing the kissing is not: it is none other than a young Jack Nicholson, back in the days when he was a lousy actor making good (?) movies. Hard to believe that he was ever a slim, almost handsome lad...
And while it is perhaps redundant for most for us to reiterate why the movie is legendary, we like to assume that those reading reviews such as this one know little or nothing about the film at hand, so perhaps a small historical assessment is needed. Above all, The Terror is renowned for being the apogee of Corman's ability to make a movie from nothing. In this case, in the middle of his Poe Phase, Corman had sets and time left over from The Raven (1963 / trailer) and promptly roped in many of those involved in that film, by low payment and/or promise of delayed payment, to create a film from nothing; what he didn't direct, he let others do it — including Francis Ford Coppola (the director of Dementia 13 [1963 / trailer / full movie]), Monte Hellman (director of Beast from Haunted Cave [1959 / trailer / full movie] and Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! [1989 / trailer]), Jack Hill (director of the masterpiece Spider Baby [1964 / trailer / full movie], Mondo Keyhole [1966 / opening], Coffy [1973] and Foxy Brown [1974 / trailer], among other fine films), Jack Nicholson (of The Little Shop of Horrors [1960 / trailer / full movie] and The Cry Baby Killer [1958 / trailer] and probably more) — and more or less created a movie around the legendary Karloff. The script was written and improvised along the way, and the final result a schizoid, inconsistent and almost laughable event. Almost, we say, because it is very hard not to fall asleep when watching it — indeed, the other day when we finally caught it again, after so many years, all those of the party of four watching the film admitted later to dozing off at one point or another...
We caught the Euro-version, which is different than the American version that is afloat throughout the web as a public domain film; at some point or another — one source we found says 1989 — Corman pulled in an older Dick Miller (who plays the butler) to film a wrap-around sequence to the original version, which thus appears in flashback as past events; Miller, properly older, nevertheless looks rather out of place with his permed hair, and the framing filmic bookends really make no sense, but the special effects are enjoyably tacky. Still, if you really have to see this film, stick with the original version — you can at least get that one for free.
Full movie:
OK, there is a lot more to the plot, but it isn't like it really makes all that much sense or really can be followed, so there is no real reason to go into detail about it. Indeed, if one were to re-title The Terror in such a way to actually reflect the movie and its content, its title would something more along the lines of The Idiocy or The Confusion or The Mess. Nevertheless, in all honesty, when considering the genesis of The Terror — no completed starting script, narrative developed along the way, five or more directors all of whom contributed to the story — the movie is surprising coherent, if in an incoherent way.
True, none of us four who watched the film recently could, at the end, fully explain the role of all six characters, but then, as mentioned previously, we did all also snooze at one point or another. And though we couldn't figure out the logic of the characters and how they related to each other — particularly Gustaf to the Nasty Old Lady — we did all agree that the The Terror started, progressed (very slowly), and ended. Had we watched it before midnight instead of after, we might have even enjoyed it that special train-wreck way, but we did watch it late at night and thus we must agree with Jack Nicholson's own opinion of the film: "It was incredibly bad." (But then, so was he.)
In all truth, not everything about The Terror is bad. It is sure to scare the little ones shitless, as it does have an oddly nightmarish quality to it and more than one decent shock scene (the opening cellar scene with Karloff, the scene in which a hawk pecks Gustaf's eyes out and, of course, the final kissing scene). Also, anyone who is partial to vintage illustration is sure to find Paul Julian's background drawings to the opening credit sequence fabulous — he's the artist behind The Hangman (1964), our Short Film of the Month for February 2011. (The Euro-version of The Terror totally obliterates the original drawings, another reason not to watch it.) And while Jack Nicholson is totally miscast as a Napoleonic officer, he hadn't yet learned how to convert his natural look of lost confusion and/or sub-intelligence into mischievousness devilry; thus he does have an oddly cuddly appearance that might appeal to some out there. And the directorial schizophrenia is on occasion rather interesting: there are interludes of Bergman-like close-ups, interludes of long shots (and not just for scenes that would require them), and an occasional dolly shot so cinematically pleasant that is actually jarred with the overall incompetency of the movie. (There is also a shot of Karloff which, if we remember correctly, is re-used three times.) It is seriously obvious that different directors were at play at different times in The Terror. And lastly, even though it has obviously faded over the years and is easily less than half that which it once was, The Terror often displays that wonderfully sumptuous color scheme that Corman graced his much better Poe films with...
The Terror: a mess, hardly imperative, but fine for the rainy day at home with kids still lacking peach fuzz...
* We are forever grateful to that man for introducing us to the masterpiece that is The Night of the Living Dead (1968 / trailer / full movie), which he broadcast uncut for the first time ever in the US in 1975 — we know that it was 1975, by the way, 'cause TV spots for the just-released Candy Tangerine Man were broadcast during the commercial breaks.
The TV spot to The Candy Tangerine Man:
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