Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Master Movies offers best quality DVD of The Terror, October 25, 1999
WARNING: If you are looking for a DVD of the Terror, there are some awful copies available! The disc from Master Movies is by FAR the best available. There are no extras to speak of except for some biographical info (some incorrect) but the film looks surprisingly good, especially if you boost the black level on your player. AVOID THE OTHER VERSIONS. The Master Movies version is the one with the non-descript grey cover with a small picture of Nicholson. No extras, blah cover, excellent picture for a public domain film.
|
|
|
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A caveat to DVD purchasers, June 14, 1999
WARNING to anyone thinking of purchasing the D-Vision DVD edition of THE TERROR: It is not the letterbox edition touted in Amazon's writeup (my sole reason for ordering it). REPEAT: It is not widescreen; it is in full-screen format, and appears to have been mastered from an EP VHS source.
|
|
|
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A cult horror classic with a fascinating history, April 19, 2005
There is a lot to talk about concerning 1963's The Terror, but the most fascinating thing of all is the fact that Roger Corman actually made a creepy, impressive film for once in his life. Of course, I can't help but think he had a little bit of help by a young associate producer named Francis Coppola. As for the film itself, it definitely deserves its cult horror film status. It features Boris Karloff, it maintains a wonderfully gloomy atmosphere throughout, boasts some pretty decent special effects, and it actually features a good story with some surprising twists and turns at the end. It also stars a young Jack Nicholson, which certainly helps its popularity - unfortunately, though, this is probably Nicholson's worst performance ever, as he sometimes rushes through his lines without immersing himself in the character.
Nicholson plays Andre Duvalier, a French soldier who has become separated from his unit. You can tell he's French because he wears a fancy uniform but doesn't seem inclined to actually engage in any sort of battle, is rather rude to those he meets, and basically expects everyone to do whatever he commands of them. Andre meets a young lady named Helene as he is wandering along some coastline and apparently falls in love with her - despite the fact she keeps disappearing and just possibly tries to lead him to his death. He ends up being cared for by a strange old woman, who tells him there is no girl in that area. Still, he persists in finding Helene, eventually tracking her to a spooky old castle. There, he meets Baron von Leppe (Karloff) and learns that the girl he saw is the spitting image of the Baron's wife, who has been dead for twenty years. He eventually learns the story of the Baroness' violent death, but he just doesn't believe that the woman he met is actually a ghost. The Baroness' death all those years ago does stand at the heart of the story, but the truth is more complicated than you might think. The film sort of plods along for awhile, but the final twenty minutes play out wonderfully. You may think you know what is really going on, but odds are that you will meet with a surprise or two before all is said and done - I know I did. There is one plot point that is a little hard to swallow for reasons that will be obvious to the viewer, but overall I would declare this film an unqualified success.
The story behind this movie has become something of a legend. It seems that Corman wrapped up filming The Raven a few days early, and so he decided to make another film on the spot. The rush job origins of the film explain some of the anachronisms that crop up, but it seems obvious to me that Corman did his best work when he didn't have time to really think about what he was doing. Some critics have referred to The Terror as a movie without a plot. Apparently, only a partial script was written on the spot - specifically, those scenes filmed on the set of The Raven. The movie was actually finished a short time later (several individuals, including Francis Ford Coppola, were tasked with the job of putting the patchwork of filmed scenes together and actually finishing the whole thing). Despite its unusual and rushed origins, though, I found The Terror to be an impressive, strongly plot-driven film. The story, even more than the actors (in my opinion, only Karloff gave an impressive performance), makes The Terror a must-see horror film that, in my estimation, is in no way cheesy.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
DVD ~ Vincent Price
DVD ~ Duane Jones
DVD ~ Boris Karloff
DVD ~ Michael Forest
