Halloween Edition: The Terror (1963) Movie Review

The Terror (1963) 

**SPOILER ALERT! This review contains the movie ending**

This movie is about a soldier named Andre (Nicholson) who is saved by a young woman Helene (Sandra Knight) who vanishes before he can thank her. He takes shelter in a nearby castle after seeing the young woman in the upstairs window. Upon his further inquiry into the woman the baron of the castle (Karloff) points to the picture above the mantle and tells him that she died twenty years ago. 

There are three things that really annoyed me while watching this movie:
1) The movie title "The Terror" and the poster in no way reflects any part of this movie. It should have been titled "The Mysterious Woman" and instead of having a spider web in the poster it should of had a ghost type woman shadow. For the record, there are no spiders in this movie.
2) This movie would have been better without the twist at the end. It turns out that Eric (Helene's lover) had never died and that it was the baron himself who had died. Eric had then taken over the barons body and convinced himself that the was the baron. 
3) It's long, slow and not greatly written. The opening features very strange (and sometimes gut turning) camera angles as well as an odd scene with Jack Nicholson trying to punch a bird that's attacking him. A lot of the shots (especially from outside) are repeated in the film. In fact the scene where the baron is going into his basement crypt was reused in the movie three different times. Some of the scenes where Andre is wandering around the castle trying to find Helene remind me of the movie "Woman in Black", where someone is just aimlessly moving about a house and nothing happens. I also found some of the dialogue to be more funny than serious. 

Helene: "I am possessed by the dead"

Andre: "You are a warm living woman. Who told you these things?"

Helene: "The dead"

The only redeeming quality I found in this movie was the fantastic sets. Apparently, they had to film all of Boris Karloffs scenes in just four days because the sets were being torn down. The same sets have also been seen in "The Raven" and "The Haunted Palace".

Overall, it was a long slow movie that was nothing special. I won't be watching it again and I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to see a pre-Shining Nicholson or a post-Frankenstein Karloff.

Grade: C-

Check back on Monday for a horror movie review from a 1981 title!