Terror, The (1963)

Horror legend Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson team up in this disjointed but enjoyable Roger Corman quickie. Nicholson plays Lieutenant Andre Duvalier, an officer under Napoleon who finds himself lost along a stretch of beach, where he is seduced by the beautiful Helene (Sandra Knight), who may or may not be a ghost. His obsession leads him to the gloomy castle of Baron Von Leppe (Karloff), a recluse haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, Ilse, who Andre suspects is actually Helene, or vice versa. Longtime Corman regular Dick Miller plays Stefan, Von Leppe’s trusty servant, and Dorothy Neumann is a witch who may be using Helene as a tool for revenge. All the characters do lots of skulking around the gloomy sets and outdoors along the beautiful Big Sur coastline, where the exteriors were filmed. Corman shot the interior scenes in two days, on sets left standing from his previous film, THE RAVEN. Though a little short on coherence, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s great to see Karloff and Nicholson together in a sort of passing of the torch. A nicely ominous mood maintains itself with the help of Ronald Stein’s robust score.

1963, colour, 81 minutes