Ring of Terror

Although it is not a very good movie, there are a few things I actually like about this film.

First is the scene with the rattle snake. Believe it or not, this actually scared me the first time I saw it (I was about 40). I hate snakes anyway and a rattler finding its way into a parked car seemed very plausible and unnerving to me. Yikes.

Second is the music which immediately precedes the snake scene. As the Buick convertible pulls up to a Magnolia tree and parks, the students are playing the car radio. I don't know what the name of the song is or the artist, but I absolutely love it—late night mood music. The same recording turned up briefly in "Hideous Sun Demon."

Third is the music heard during the outdoor fraternity party the night the assignments are given out. Several tunes are heard, but this one is clearly the "B" side of the record used for the snake scene. It's by the same group and has the same sexy, late night jazziness about it. It's great.

Fourth is the ending with the ring. Perhaps, like the rest of the movie, it was crudely done. But nevertheless, when the student goes into the mortuary and is sweating it out removing the ring, I felt very tense, just waiting for something awful to happen. It worked for me.

Lastly is the fact that there are some fairly hot guys in the cast, which always brightens things up a bit. I won't name them, you can see for yourself.

Not a great film, but still a few things to like about it.

This film wasn't released until 1962.My guess it was shot no later than 1957 and sat on the shelf for years.Too bad it didn't stay there.

The film centers on a fraternity hazing ritual played on medical students.One student who is seemingly without fear has to remove a ring off of a corpse in a mausoleum.

There are no scares and no real laughs to this flick. What you do have:

1)A band that plays in the school cafeteria called "The Campus Cool Cats"

2)The worlds oldest college students.Most of them looked like they're attending on the GI bill from WW II.

3)Some idiotic cemetary caretaker and his snivelling little cat Puma who introduce the film.Actually it is more like pad an extra five minutes onto the film as he chases the cat all over the cemetary.

4)Nice use of black and white photography

If you have guests or in laws over that can't take the hint to leave, slap this in the vcr and watch them run screaming off into the night.

This is pretty bad, but in the most ridiculous, inconsequential way. Even though it was set in the fifties, the person who put it together must have had no inkling as to how human beings treat each other. This is a mess. You have a bunch of young women dating medical students (the big wage earners of the future) who have a need to party at the "Cafeteria." When the guys get their assignment to view an autopsy, one of the major events in their education, the girls go all ballistic because they were left at the dance. You can't tell the faculty from the students because they are all in their thirties or forties. The main character is traumatized by a fear that his grandfather will jump out of his coffin and throttle him. Let's face it. Ozzie and Harriet was more exciting. The dialogue is atrocious and the believability of the whole thing stretched to the limit. One of the most memorable scenes is the fat guy and his large girlfriend in the bushes, moaning, eating hot dogs. If this isn't Freudian, I don't know what is. It's really a mess, but sort of "mess"merizing.

This murky film with terrible sound looks like it was filmed around 1939. It's about a bunch of geriatric medical students eagerly awaiting their first autopsy. One unshakable elderly boy's creeped-out girlfriend wishes he was studying anything but medicine. So why is she dating guys from med school? Is she going to medical school too? Or is this a college where you can major in being a doctor, with a minor in communications? It's hard to tell, and the women in in this movie don't seem to ever have to go to class.

Anyway, some middle-aged fraternity pranksters make the elderly boy steal a ring off a corpse, an urban legend that should take five minutes to tell and doesn't bode well stretched out to feature length. I'm not going to give away the ending, suffice to say the old man's weak ticker factors into the plot.

To pad out the running time, lots of time is spent dwelling on the two fat characters, exploring the theme that fat people love to eat and should be mocked for trying to do anything other than that. There's also a lengthy intro (and outro) by Bob Dobson, a creepy, cemetery-dwelling loser who stomps on his cat Puma's tale and mocks the dead. He must be the Crypt Keeper before the Crypt Keeper died and rotted and gained a penchant for bad puns.

There is one good thing about this movie, I only paid 50 cents for it at the dollar store. (Even the dollar store discounted it) The comments on this site about this film are right on target (and hilarious). It did seem like the entire movie was going to center on the caretaker calling his cat. The "college kids" were closer to retirement than graduation. The best acting was done by "John Doe". He should have had top billing. I have seen "bullet bras" in 50's films, but this was the first time ever to witness an "ICBM bra". Don't miss the dance scene. The dance tune, featuring a trumpet as the lead instrument, is performed by a band not having a trumpet. The goofy girl with pony tails, the nerdy guy, and the overweight couple were obviously added for comedy relief. Relief from what? I had to use the fast forward several times just to get to the "action", only to slip right passed the "action" without noticing it. This film is best viewed in "fast forward", and don't worry about missing the sound, it doesn't add anything to the plot. The dollar store won't refund my 50 cents.