L'Halluciné

I bought the DVD for the Little Shop of Horrors and was pleasently surprised to find it was a double feature with The Terror. I watched it with no expectations and ended up enjoying the movie. If this were a modern day movie, all involved would be laughed out of the box office. Their attempt to throw in a few catsup filled gore scenes and several lame twists at the end made it comical enough to sit through. And how about that young and dapper Jack Nicholson?! This is one to watch in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, and it's worth watching at least once. I had to know how it would end.

Enjoyment of this film will depend on two things. First how much you like the actors involved. The second is the understand that this film was pieced together from scraps of film shot by various directors to fit in with footage that had been shot of Karloff on left over sets after the original feature had been finished. If you can forgive your favorite actors anything and accept that this is a paste up job, then you'll have yourself an okay time at the movies.

Lets face it this film is a mess. The story of a French soldier following a mysterious woman to a castle is so disjointed that they actually shot a scene where Jack Nicholson grabs one of the characters and asks him whats going on, its at that point all of the loose ends are brought together in a tenuous grip.

Its the sort of movie that shouldn't work on any level but some how does.Its well acted considering that no one probably had any idea what they were starring in. Its also directed well enough that you don't realize that there were actually five directors other than Roger Corman behind the camera.

Currently floating around in the public domain (cheap video copies are to be had) this is a movie worth seeing if you want to see how Jack Nicholson started or how Boris Karloff ended up. Its a just okay thriller with a more interesting production history. Worth a bag of popcorn if you need another movie to fill out a night of Corman Poe movies.

Actally its none too "original" either, being little more than a variation on Edgar Allan Poe's FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER coincidentally made by Corman himself five years earlier. Contrary to popular public opinion, THE TERROR was NOT filmed in four days. The scenes with Karloff were, but the remaining 2/3 of the movie were shot sporadically over a ten week period....with a little help from Corman's inner sanctum of friends, including Francis (Ford) Coppola no less!

Filmed pricipally to capitalise on sets left over from THE RAVEN (yet another Edgar Allan Poe tale - Corman had already filmed THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM as well as THE TELL TALE HEART) this hastily produced little flick was mildy interesting with not a little charisma. Nicholson's performance here gives less than no clue as to the great work that was yet to come in such as ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST, FIVE EASY PIECES and BATMAN. One could be positively uncharitable and say his performance here amounted to little more than disinterested and amateurish acting. But still it remains today early Nicholson and by that token alone offers curiosity value.

In the upshot way better than the sum of its parts...even given the garish Pathe color! The recently re-released DVD version offers surprisingly effective new 6-track surround sound.

This is quite a Gothic tale of horror, including sundry gory bits. The castle is expectedly dark and brooding, and Corman creates an eerie atmosphere very well.

I spotted two directional errors. The handguns are revolver like, and I do not think such guns were used in Europe in the early years of the nineteenth century. Also, the servant Stefan often stands too close to the Baron, and to Lieutenant Duvalier. For reasons that become clear later, he could assume such familiarity with the Baron. However no nineteenth century officer of the French army, especially one of aristocratic lineage, would tolerate such behaviour from a minion.

Jack Nicholson said of the film, 'This is the only Hollywood film with a complete script that has absolutely no story.' This about sums it up. It should be watched for the camera-work and the ambiance.

Legend has it that Roger Corman filmed The Terror over a frantic four-day period; the truth is rather more interesting, as it undoubtedly contributed to the film's remarkable, incomparable, mesmerizing texture. After production wrapped on The Raven, Corman had Karloff, Nicholson, and the Raven's sets for four remaining days, so he hurriedly shot what he could before the walls came down and his stars departed. He then dispatched various acolytes, including Francis Coppola, Dennis Jakoub, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Nicholson himself to produce enough footage to make The Terror into a complete feature. The result is a unique, fascinating, intensely visual and cinematic experiment that makes Corman's previous Poe adaptations look overly literary, plot-laden, and dialog-bound. The Terror may not be very logical, and its story will not withstand much scrutiny, but the film succeeds as a feverish nightmare of obsession and mad love. The photography, especially of the Big Sur locations, and of the fog bound studio cemetery sets, has an intense eerie romantic beauty, and Ronald Stein's remarkable score underscores The Terror's uncanny equation of desire and death. Is it cheap? Yes. Are there mistakes and screw ups? Sure. Does the continuity falter? Absolutely. None of this matters. The Terror is extraordinary in its palpable dream-like intensity. Oh, and by the way: an elderly, sick, practically crippled Boris Karloff, who could have easily tossed this off as an imposition, is terrific as always and a wonder to behold.