Celui qui n'existait pas

This is an highly imaginative and entertaining spookfest with a focus on nightmares and dreams. It lacks William Castle's usual gimmicks to attract an audience yet stands out as a fine film effort.

When a blind man - suspicious of his wife's loyalty to him due to her dreams of another lover - dies in a bizarre laboratory explosion, his wife begins to have nightmares about him and begins to suspect she may be going crazy.

There's a good creepy atmosphere here and to think it's achieved without many of the expected gimmicks and thrills - the chapel-wedding sequence with the mannequins, spinning chandelier, candles being particularly effective.

Barbara Stanwyck is quite good in this but they do have her just stand still and scream too much in this movie. The ending too is not without its problems but still this film makes for enjoyable late-night viewing.

Say what you want about William Castle but, even without silly gimmicks and avant-garde marketing tricks, this man was able to deliver competent and solid atmosphere-driven horror tales! "The Night Walker" is perfect proof of this statement, because even though the screenplay (by none other than Robert "Pyscho" Bloch") is occasionally too slow-paced and predictable, Castle still managed to turn it into a mysteriously ominous thriller with a handful of authentic fright-moments, hypnotizing music, eerie imagery and strong performances. The voiceover intro is rather dumb and redundant, as it's an exaggeratedly theatrical lecture about the phenomena of dreams and dreaming. Basically, it's just a lot of pseudo-intellectual and pretentious mumbo-jumbo that ends with the nonsensical phrase: "When you dream, you become a night walker". Hence the title, huh? Thank you, Mr. Castle!

Immediately after, however, "The Night Walker" becomes tense and compelling. The wealthy, blind and downright petrifying Howard Trent confronts his wife with his suspicion that she's cheating. Irene confesses, but only in her dreams, because she never leaves the house and Trent is cruel and possessive when it comes to her. When Trent dies in a freaky accident in his laboratory, Irene still isn't care-free. She still dreams of her inexistent (or not?) Prince Charming, but also suffers from nightmares in which Trent looking even more terrifying now since half of his face is burnt, comes back from the dead to kill her. Irene receives help and moral support from Trent's handsome lawyer Barry Morland and her beauty salon employee Joyce, but inevitably her mental state deteriorates further. You don't exactly require a PhD. in criminology to figure out what is going on, but William Castle nevertheless admirably attempts to retain the mystery aspects. He reveals very little until the climax, comes up with a few efficient plot twists and successfully makes you wonder if Barbara Stanwyck's visions are real or imaginary. The make-up/mask worn is by Hayden Rorke is fantastically horrific and the, hands down, best quality of "The Night Walker" is the spellbinding music by Vic Mizzy.

One of the last of the great William Castle's horror/schlock masterpieces from the 60s. This one doesn't have quite the tongue-in-cheek humor of some of his earlier efforts like "The Tingler", or even "Homicidal", but it's still worth looking into. Barbara Stanwyck's acting is solid in this film, although her screaming-hacking cough borders on the ridiculous after awhile.

There are, however, two excellent sequences in this film that are not to be missed. One is the expressionistic prolouge, narrated by Paul Frees in his recognizably sinister voice, and the other is the late-night marriage ceremony, which is also eerie and well done.

Another great facet of this movie is the music score by Vic Mizzy. Mizzy did many excellent scores to minor films during the 60s, but this one is perhaps his very best one. It adds greatly to the film's atmosphere and suspense.

Perhaps the key to enjoying this movie is to come to it with no expectations, as I did--or to be a fan of William Castle (as I am becoming!). If you know William Castle's work, you know to expect low-budget chills that don't take themselves very seriously. What's surprising about this film is that it's actually fairly sophisticated. The plot has some excellent twists; the chills are more psychological and less gore-dependent than in other Castle films I can think of; and it's just fun to see two great (albeit aging) stars get their teeth into a horror script. Barbara Stanwyck is excellent, and Robert Taylor comes a close second.

Why this little gem isn't available on DVD with (what I consider to be) lesser Castle works baffles me. It's definitely worth seeking out for your next cheesy horror fest.

Dark and spooky movie about murder and deception with a number of twists and turns to it that keeps you guessing until the very last frame.

"The Night walker" is one of those films that doesn't seem to be what you at first think that it is; Something between a horror and psychological movie. The movie skillfully goes from one side of of line to the other throughout it's almost entire time on the screen until that last ten or so minutes when you really see it for what it is and it's very effective in doing it.

"The Night Walker" starts out like something out of the "Twilight Zone" or "One Step Beyond" with a very good prelude about the world of dreams and how we who dream becomes "Night Walkers" in them. Howard Trent, Hayden Rorke, is a blind millionaire who's suspicious of his wife Irene, Barbara Stanwyck. Howard thinks that Irene is cheating on him but all the evidence that he has is a number of audio tape recordings he secretly recorded in her bedroom while Irene was talking in her sleep.

Howard tells his friend and lawyer Barry Moreland, Robert Taylor, how he feels about his wife Barbara at the start of the movie. You somehow at first think that it's Barry who's the man who having the affair with his Irene. It's seems that the blind but very cagey and clever Howard is manipulating both Barry and his wife Irene is some kind of sub-rosa plan that he's cooking up for them. A little later after Howard got into a fight with Irene he goes into his secret room where he keeps all of his audio equipment and tapes, as Irene runs out of the house, and the room suddenly explodes with him being blown to bits to where there's nothing left of Howard but molecules and atoms. With her husband dead and Irene now all alone in the house her dreams,or better yet nightmares, become more and more pronounced and real to the point where she has to leave the house in order to keep from going insane.

Moving into a room at the back of a beauty shop that she owned now instead of her dreams stopping they become even more real to the point where she can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Irenes conjures up this "Dream Man" Lloyd Bochner, who appears to Irene at night. The "Dream Man" is so real that when he gets her to go out with him one evening to a chapel to get married the next day when Irene was driving with Barry through the city streets Irene recognizes the places that she went with her "Dream Man"! Is Irene dreaming all this or is it real? if it is real why and who is behind all this? and even more if it's real what are the reasons for doing this?

Plays like a very good whodunit with Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck giving the movie the attention and class that it wouldn't have gotten if it had much less known actors in those two top roles. The ending to the movie was not at all that contrived as if the screenplay was written only for shock value. The ending tried and succeeded in tying all the loose ends together and giving the film a satisfying instead of a confusing ending.