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A Passion For Horror
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More Public Domain Horror Films ___ The Terror Movie Poster Print Style A - 27" x 40" (approx.)
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The Terror (1963)
(a.k.a Lady of the Shadows, The Castle of Terror)
Produced and Directed by Roger Corman
The Terror is a 1963 horror film starring a young-looking Jack Nicholson, an old-and-creepy-looking Boris Karloff and a rather voluptuous-looking Sandra Knight. The film can also boast a rather vicious-looking bird of prey, belonging to the film's witch, whose looks are more akin to Karloff's than to Knights -- more's the pity -- but more on the witch later. Nicholson stars as Lieutenant Andre Duvalier, an officer in the French army. He has become separated from his regiment and finds himself riding along a secluded beach with only his horse and a rather dodgy compass for company. The horse at least seems to know where it is going. The needle of Andre's compass, on the other hand, is jumping around all over the place and, as the sun beats down mercilessly on his head, Andre topples off his horse. When he awakes the first thing he sees is they mysterious and beautiful Helene. He is captivated immediately and proceeds to charm Helene with a few of his chat-up lines which, it has got to be said, are pretty poor and Helene not only giggles at him, but runs away (way to go Andre, you silver tongued devil you). Andre chases after her, and seems to spend the rest of the film continuing to do so. After a little mishap in the sea -- courtesy of the witch's pet bird -- the lieutenant finds himself unconscious again and this time wakes up in the home of the witch. At this point, of course, he doesn't know that she is a witch, but he has the rest of the film to find that out. When Andre enquires about the strange girl the witch tells him that there is no girl and says that the only Helene in the area is her pet bird. "This is Helene," she says, bringing her feathered friend to show to the less than impressed soldier. Eventually Andre finds himself at the Castle Von Leppe where the Baron also denies any knowledge of Helene; even though the lieutenant points out that he has seen her at one of the castle's windows. The only other person living in the castle, the Baron insists, is his servant Stefan. Andre keeps pushing the subject though and in the end he is shown a portrait of the Baron's wife Ilsa. She is the spitting image of Helene; but has been dead for twenty years. Roger Corman is credited as the director of the film, but supposedly Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and Nicholson all had a hand in its direction. If there is any to truth to this, too many cooks didn't spoil this broth and I enjoyed watching The Terror very much. It has a very atmospheric and Gothic feel to it, a creepy soundtrack, and all the trims and frills of a horror film of its era: a spooky castle on a hilltop (often shown against a dark and stormy sky and lit by lightning), a family crypt, and candlesticks that open a secret passage. What more could any fan of Classic horror films ask for? The Terror was filmed in colour, but it isn't exactly to the same standard as modern colour films and a lot of the time scenes look like they have been shot through a blue filter: Blue castle walls! (But only sometimes). There is not a lot of bloodshed in The Terror, but whenever blood is shown it looks more akin to tomato ketchup than to rhesus negative and so when one poor chap gets his eyes pecked out the witch's bird he looks more like a victim of sloppy table manners than attacking bird, but for a brief moment, before I looked to closely, the scene was quite horrific. If you are a fan of classic horror films and think that the
Count's servant, Stefan (played by Dick Miller), looks a little familiar,
the chances are that you might have seen him in Corman's earlier film
A Bucket of Blood, in which he took
the starring role. Then again, he has worked on a lot of
other films -- busy guy. Scroll down the page to watch The Terror (Donwload links below the player) CAST Boris Karloff ... Baron Victor Frederick
Von Leppe This text will be replaced
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