The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle

Jupiter has a surprise birthday party given by his relatives at his junkyard meeting place of the boys who investigate, Jupiter the leader, Pete and Bob.

The relatives bring a cake, he does not like this. His parents died around his birthday years ago in an accident. A clown that no one invited grabs a video, drops it in liquid and runs out. The tape is partially destroyed but Jupiter sees his mother and father on the tape. They were investigators. He did not know that and they died 2 days after that tape was made. They give clues about a man they were investigating Steven Terrill. Jupiter intends to find out what happened.

The 3 investigators travel to land near where his parents talked about on the tape. They were investigating Steven Terrill and this was his "terror" castle. The kids find Terrill was skilled at what he did. There are amazing things the movie creators made work in this movie.

The owner used steam heat to run the things he created. A elevator, lights, fireplace, moving shelves and more. The story is very scary at times. The kids go into Terror Castle and meet Caroline who thinks she is psychic and believes in ghosts. The boys don't know what to make of her. The girl's father is a Sheriff and does not like these kids. Later Caroline helps them.

A couple of things I did not like about this movie was the inflation of physic stuff, ghost and curses. Also the scary scene with running, darkness and background stuff in the dark just lasted too long.

In the end the the belief in ghost in the goings on in the castle are put to rest until they hear a suspicious noise at their meeting place but you might say the psychic stuff and the ghost end up dead and buried.

The story has a nice ending.

Reading earlier reviews I deduce that "T3I and the Secret of Terror Castle" does not meet their expectation. We easily understood that because this movie is really targeted to adolescent and below. If I was that age I would probably truly enjoy the movie but only if I haven't read the book yet. Kids would easily enjoy this movie because it's cool enough, such as the castle.

I was afraid to watch this movie for the reason that it would tarnish my good memory of Three Investigators and it prove to be true. When I was reading the book I always feel fascinated, the location, the characters it seems just magical. Watching the movie, it seems that it is a different world from the one in the book.

As I said that it would entertain many kids which just watching it now and never had reading the book before, we adults that enticed to watch it in which we demand something else than those kids will be disappointed. We adults hope to see interesting and eccentric characters and dialogs, that cool accents from Jupiter Jones, more peculiar music soundtrack, and more magical-feel but normal-looking towns would not get what we want. We won't even entertained by the case which is the one most interesting thing why we want to read the next novel.

For young men don't miss this one for it is really rare this kind of movie around: Kids Detective that investigate peculiar case without an element of Action in which nowadays detective movie would always combined.

This story has little to do with the original story and shares only some commonalities with the main characters of the original book series), but is entertaining and funny in some ways. Maybe a bit more pace, investigation and action would have been good, but at least this movie seems to be at least more down to earth than The Secret of Skeleton Island (especially in terms of action). It is a German production. However, many German viewers were also disappointed, not just Americans. It is also not the view Germans have of America and Americans and French (villains). IMHO -compared with other movies for kids - this movie is at least as entertaining as the Goonies, if not even better. I would give it a 6 out of 10. As a child I might have given this a higher number, possibly a 7 out of 10 (especially without knowing they are supposed to be the 3 Investigators and Terror Castle). I would rate both the original book and the story on audio tape 9 or 9.5 out of 10. So that shows the vast gap of quality between book and audio cassette vs. This movie.

I would recommend the movie for older kids who do not know the original story in the book and the tape. For those who know the book it might be a disappointment. I was not disappointed, because I didn't have really high expectations in the first place, because I have watched the first movie and even before that my expectations were not that high.

As a child I read many of the three investigators books, being my favourite series. Discovering that a film had been made about the characters I had grown to love was wonderful, but would it live up to my expectations? Sadly, it was a little disappointing. There was good action, and Im sure children will find it entertaining, but I feel much of the treasures in the book are missing. The exciting headquarters, hidden in the midst of a junk yard, only accessible by several mysterious tunnels is reduced to a caravan out in the open. Jupiter Jones, a brilliant mind, full of sharp remarks and the lead role in the book is barely intelligent and just dull and grey. The dialogue was also put together without giving much sense of feeling. Its not a big Hollywood production, so hats of for what they achieved, and I'm glad for the chance to have watched the books come to life.

Like many movies based on a book, this one takes many liberties with the story. That is understandable considering that the plot of the original book would not have worked in the 21st century. However, being a fan of the books saying that this movie has a great Scooby-Doo ending isn't exactly a glowing compliment. The biggest lure of the books is the intelligence written into them. The science in the books has an air of plausibility, especially for the time when they were written. The movie does have glimmers of that, but it falls apart at the end like the stereotypical cartoon. Not a bad movie at all, as long as you aren't expecting a Three Investigators quality story.

My 11 year old grandson, a recently initiated fan of the books, was much more receptive. He was excited to see many of the book aspects come to life, and he was happy with the 21st century updates. He was clearly the target demo for this movie, and he loved it. My rating is a combination of his 10 and my 5.