Product Details

• Actors: Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, Elio Jotta, Harriet Medin, Carol Bennet
• Directors: Riccardo Freda
• Writers: Riccardo Freda, Oreste Biancoli
• Producers: Luigi Carpentieri
• Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Alpha Video
• DVD Release Date: October 7, 2003
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000AGWMC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,644 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Ghost" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  ALPHA VIDEO Packaging:  DVD STYLE BOX The infamous Dr. Hitchcock performs seances and black magic rituals to ease the pain of a debilitating illness. Overwhelmed by sadistic demands his beautiful young wife concocts a plan to murder the doctor and inherit his riches. The ghastly voice of the murdered professor echoes through the haunted mansion when his ghost returns seeking vengeance. The wife's terror and the spirit's bloodlust lead to a horrific confrontation and their ultimate doom. The Ghost (originally released in Italy as Lo Spectro) is the second film by Riccardo Freda to detail the gruesome crimes of Dr. Hitchcock. In addition to The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock (1962) Freda's other legendary films include I Vampiri (1956) Caltiki The Immortal Monster (1959) and Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (1962). Starring: Barbara SteeleDirected by: Riccardo Freda DVD Details: Run Time: 95 minutesNumber of Discs: 1Originally Released in 1963ColorNo region encoding; For global distribution.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FOR STEELE FANS....., November 14, 2003

By 

Mark Norvell (HOUSTON) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ghost (DVD)

Riccardo Freda followed up his 1962 classic "Terror of Dr.Hitchcock" with 1963's "The Ghost"...again with Barbara Steele. This time, Hitchcock is a frail ailing man in a wheelchair relying on seances and drugs. His beautiful and glamorous wife Margaret (Steele) is tired of looking after him and wants to be with her lover, family friend Dr.Livingstone. She also wants his wealth and the jewels he keeps locked in a safe. So she persuades Livingstone to kill him. But as soon as he's entombed, Dr.Hitchcock's ghost seeemingly returns to haunt them. Margaret is especially targeted and driven to frenzy. In a well done scene, she believes Livingstone has tricked her out of the jewels and slashes him to death with a straight razor---the blood splattering and running down the screen. "The Ghost" is an exquisitely mounted Gothic horror film with beautiful sets and dripping with morbid atmosphere. Steele looks fantastic. She is well photographed to show off her lustrous dark hair and dark exotic eyes. She is especially fetching in period costumes...particularly a black sequined lace gown. Her performance as vixen/victim is very good. The pace of the film is very leisurely allowing the terror to mount bit by bit until full throttle horror sets in. Unfortunately, it's released by the cheapo Alpha Video people so the transfer is lousy. Diehards (such as myself) will find it watchable though. Until someone rescues it and gives it the treatment it so richly deserves, this is the best we can get. So for the fans, it's a find. Enjoy.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Games people (and ghosts) play..., March 14, 2005

By 

cookieman108 "cookieman108®" (Inside the jar...) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ghost (DVD)

There's a reason The Ghost (1963) is rarely mentioned over such Barbara Steele films as Black Sunday (1961), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), or Castle of Blood (1963) and that's because it's not very good. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Euro horror queen Barbara Steele, but I'd be hard pressed to recommend this one over any number of her other, better films. By the way, the spelling of Hichcock with relation to the film I mentioned earlier and also the surname of the main characters in this film is the correct spelling. I'm not going to harp on the trifle matter, but I find it odd that confirmed fans seemed to believe the spelling to be `Hitchcock'. Directed by Riccardo Freda (Lust of the Vampire), even though the credits state Robert Hampton (I would have went with a pseudonym too, seeing the final product), the film stars Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, who seems to have found his calling behind the camera (thankfully) directing on such television shows as Full House, Murphy Brown, and Blossom, to name a few, and Leonard Elliott (Buck Privates). Also appearing is Harriet Medin, sometimes credited as Harriet White (The Frightening Secret of Dr. Hichcock, Black Sabbath), as the maid (the character of dutiful house servant seemed to be Ms. Medin's bread and butter, as it was a role she appeared in often).

Supposedly a sequel to the earlier The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (even though the good doctor himself is played now by Leonard Elliott instead of Robert Flemyng, and has changed his name from Bernard to John, and Ms. Steele is no longer Cynthia but now called Margaret), the film begins, set in early 20th century Scotland, as we see Dr. Hichcock confined to a wheelchair, now an invalid, probably due the particularly nasty spill he took at the end of the previous film (which was also directed by Freda). The doctor seems to have taken an interest in the spirit world (probably because he'll be joining it soon enough), by which he regularly holds séances, and also believes he can cure his own paralysis by having his friend Dr. Charles Livingstone (Baldwin) regularly administer a poison, followed by the antidote (seems like a strange treatment, but hey, I'm no doctor, though I play one on TV). Anyway, Margaret and Charles are secretly fanning some torrid affair, and she convinces Charles to kill her husband, so that not only could they be together, but share in her soon to be deceased husband's vast fortune (they're quite the pretty pair). Things go as planned, that is until the deadly duo discover all the material wealth isn't where it's supposed to be, and John's spirit has apparently returned to get all supernatural on their behinds, focusing more on Margaret. Oddly enough the strength of their bonds, forged from deception, greed, and adultery, begin to weaken, and the relationship heads into some troubled waters, highlighted by Charles being on the receiving end of one of the worst shaves I've ever seen, administered by Margaret and a straight razor.

The film isn't all that bad, but I doubt it's the highlight of anyone's career, either. The script seemed pretty lame (filled with weary expository statements), and the actors (most of whom seemed to be alumni of the Keanu Reeves School of acting) had an awful tendency to step on each other's lines, along with the opposite, that of allowing more time than necessary between lines, i.e. pregnant pauses (perhaps these were both due more to lousy dubbing). The settings were appropriate (what I could see of them...I'll get more into this later), so that helped with the atmosphere, but little else did. The shocks were of the most rudimentary kind, as often we see a character, alone in a darkened room, approached by a hand whose owner we can't see, grasping the shoulder of the original character in dramatic fashion (the hand usually belonged to the maid, who I would have fired after one such occasion...scare yourself to the welfare line, baby...I guess knocking, along with windows, aren't part of her duties). I desperately tried to get into this film, and I was aided by the fact Ms. Steele appeared nearly throughout, but even her lovely visage and large, hypnotic eyes only went so far...she did have a fairly extensive and appropriate wardrobe throughout the film, if you're interested in that kind of thing (my girlfriend is, more so than I). The ending is, well, an ending alright, but one I would have expected from a Scooby Doo cartoon rather than a horror thriller. The clunky exposition comes fast and furious, as every little stinking detail is laid out for us, as is necessary because otherwise how would we understand the intricacies of such elaborate schemes (capable storytelling, perhaps)? This is a case where the writers tried to get too cutesy, developing the story in haphazard fashion, only to figure everything can later be explained at the end of the film.

Alpha Video, the company that released this DVD, specializes in releasing films and television features where the original copyright has expired, so their original source material is most likely limited to a previously released VHS copy, this, along with the fact they don't have to pay any royalties, is why they can offer these films so cheaply. The fullscreen print on this DVD is exceptionally poor, with the audio a little better. Any gothic feel is completely obliterated, as the daytime scenes are often murky, while nighttime scenes are obscured completely, along with the occasional missing frame here and there. There's relatively few scenes where excessive damage and/or age wear isn't present, and I actually became weary watching the film as I spent a great deal of effort trying to focus on the events on the screen, rather than the poor quality of the picture. I've heard this film is also available on a DVD set from Brentwood, featuring 10 public domain horror flicks, but the quality there is equally poor.

Cookieman108

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woman Of Steele!, December 10, 2003

By 

Bindy Sue Frønkünschtein "bigfootsalienbaby" (under the rubble) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Ghost (DVD)

THE GHOST is my favorite Barbara Steele movie. She is fantastic as the scheming, coniving, back-stabbing wife of the seemingly weak and dying Dr. Hitchcock. With the help of the family doctor (who is also her lover), she plans on bumping off hubby for his stocks, land, and jewels. Everything goes according to the sinister plot until after Hitchcock's death by poisoning. He just doesn't want to stay dead! The rest is a masterpiece of double / triple cross and betrayal. An excellent ending makes this a perfect mystery / revenge film. Besides, Barbara Steele's in it almost the whole time! That's enough for me right there...