Terrified

Terrified (1963)

*** (out of 4)

As one character explains, fear is the ultimate weapon that will force countries to fight one another and force one person to kill another. If someone has fear then they can be destroyed or destroy anyone in their way. A small town is being stalked by a maniac wearing a mask and this maniac likes to use fear as his weapon. One way of gaining fear is by playing chicken on the road forcing people to make up their mind on which way to turn the wheel. Another way to gain fear is by burying the victims alive so they can slowly count their final seconds before their air supply is gone.

Terrified is a wonderfully entertaining picture that goes on the same tactics used by director William Castle. In this film, the director tries every way possible to make the viewer feel uneasy and the entire film is about making the viewer go into a state of fear. The film certainly isn't horrifying but it does contain some wonderful atmosphere and some incredibly well directed scenes that do add a bit of eeriness, which makes this a perfect little sleeper that not too many have seen.

There's a wonderful sequence in the middle of the film where the maniac is stalking a victim inside a house. As the victim tries to make an escape, the maniac slowly walks behind him closing any door he goes through so that the victim can't go back but instead he must continue going forward where he will eventually be out of places to run. This scene lasts a good ten minutes and the thing gets more nail biting as every new door is closed. The one problem with the film is that there are way too many dialogue scenes where characters are trying to predict who the killer is. This here really takes away some of the tension and it would have played better without the characters guessing at who the maniac is. There's a shorter version of this movie available that is missing this dialogue so perhaps that version would be even better. This DVD contains the uncut, 79-minute version of the film.

A college psychology student, intent on writing a term paper on how much terror the human mind can endure, learns his answers first-hand as he finds himself the target of a mysterious, hooded killer.

The film opens with the Fallen Angel Saloon, and the masked killer burying someone alive in a graveyard. The killer's eyes are bright and furious -- absolutely terrifying. And then cut to some nice title credits.

Director Lew Landers is many years past his prime here (1935-1944). This film claims to be released in 1963... when Landers would already have been dead, possibly suggesting it was finished without him. And horror reference books seem to know nothing of this one, unfortunately. (This was, as it turns out, Landers' final film.)

The sound on the Mill Creek disc is fuzzy, but the picture seems okay for the most part. This could be cleaned up, hopefully, if anyone ever wanted to give this a proper release. I also love that there is a character referred to only as "Crazy Bill".

Someone in a black suit, tie, gloves, and ski mask and white shirt has buried a young man up to his neck in cement in a cemetery. He taunts him, and the young man snaps. An old man seems to witness the crime.

On the roads, a mystery driver in a mask has been playing his own personal game of chicken with people. He gets off on terror, it seems. Coincidentally another young man is doing a mid-term paper on resisting terror. He'd been a friend of the guy who'd been buried in cement.

The term paper guy's girlfriend wants to talk to Crazy Bill in ghost town, near the cemetery (I guess the filmmakers had a western set they wanted to use). One of the buildings in the ghost town is the Bella Union saloon, which I thought might identify the movie the town was in, or what actual ghost town it might be. Actually, that's apparently a common name for a western saloon.

The girlfriend and her would-be boyfriend go to the ghost town. The boyfriend goes later. There are long scenes, with some suspense, in which the killer stalks his prey, catches it, toys with it, and releases it for more stalking. Unlike other masked killer in horror movies, this one's happy to use a handgun in his arsenal.

Very low budget, but still fairly entertaining. I saw it on DVD in Rhino's Horrible Horrors Vol. 2 box set.

A bad film, to be sure, but "Terrified!" is an interesting relative of low budget classics like "Carnival Of Souls" and "Dementia". Like "Carnival" it is all set around a spooky location the film makers had access to. This is also a central absurdity of the plot: the town has an abandoned ghost town by a graveyard, but for some reason it seems to be a place where people hang out at night.

Denver Pyle seems to be still learning to act but the actors

do there best with what they are given. Some interesting, if pretentious ideas dance around the script or maybe just pad it out. The sicko killer suggests the darker areas horror would continue to explore in the sixties.

LATER Viewing: I think I really underrated this. It is a strange minimalist horror movie, and it's effect is eerie. Probably made for late night horror show and never shown at the theater (yes, there were such films) Terrified gets under your skin if you give it the chance.

I was in no way as impressed with this little film as others seem to be. It is definitely a cheap "shocker" about some bizarre plan to eliminate all the loved ones surrounding some dull young teen. Tracy Olsen plays the girl with little depth. Surrounding her are two male suitors - Rod Lauren as a young college student trying to realize what real fear is and the nature of terror and Steve Drexel as the uneducated but loaded with common sense guy. Both do adequate jobs, but this film is just so cheap. Most of the movie takes place in a deserted ghost town with a guy in a mask running around laughing and panting. These scenes are relatively effective and the killer does have an ability to appear menacing, but there are also some ludicrous scenes thrown in and some weird, unexplained stuff, and fantastic leaps of logic needed when the end is revealed. Threading its way throughout the entire story is Tracy's brother may or may not be the killer because he escaped from prison. There is also some guy in a mask running people off of the road. How was that possible when we finally do discover who the killer is? The script wanders and meanders quite a bit and again, the budget is low. But there are some things going for this film. Director Lew Landers does have some tension created in some scenes. I did like the opening scene, and I did think the use of setting was utilized as well as might be expected given the apparent budget. The acting is mediocre at best and poor in general.Do look for a young Denver Pyle as the sheriff, however.