1963 film
The Terror (1963) is an American horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman, and famous for being filmed on leftover film sets from other AIP productions, including The Haunted Palace. The movie was also released as Lady of the Shadows, The Castle of Terror and The Haunting, and was later featured as an episode of Cinema Insomnia[1] and of Elvira's Movie Macabre.
Although sometimes linked to Corman's series of so-called "Poe films," which were inexpensive films loosely based on the public domain works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Terror is not actually based on any text by Poe.
Plot
Set in 1806, the film tells the story of a lost French soldier named Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) saved by a strange young woman named Helene (Sandra Knight). She looks like Ilsa, the baron's (Boris Karloff) wife, who died 20 years before.
Andre begins an investigation to uncover who the woman really is, and stumbles upon a hidden secret of the Baron: he had found Ilsa sleeping with another man named Eric, and in his rage the Baron killed the two of them. Or so he explained.
All the while, the phantom of Ilsa remained under the control of a peasant witch (Dorothy Neumann), who has commanded the ghost to torment the Baron for the previous two years. Over the course of the film, Ilsa's ghost beseeches the Baron to kill himself, so they could be together. After much hesitation, the Baron decides to do so, perhaps to atone for his crimes.
During the climactic scenes, Andre, as well as the Baron's butler Stefan (Dick Miller), try to stop him, eventually forcing the witch into compliance. Here it is revealed that the witch Katrina is in fact the mother of Eric, who was allegedly killed by the Baron twenty years before, and that is why she has tried to make him commit suicide and damn his soul to hell in the process. In a stunning revelation, Stefan reveals that Eric never died, that it was the Baron who was killed. Eric then took the Baron's place, living his life until he deluded himself into thinking he was the Baron.
Katrina, realizing her folly only too late, goes with the two men to stop Eric from flooding the castle crypt and killing himself. However, she is unable to go into the mausoleum, being a witch and therefore of evil association, and ends up being struck by lightning and burning to death outside the gate.
In the climax of the film, Ilsa's ghost attempts to kill Eric while the crypt floods, and Stefan joins the struggle. However, by the time Andre gains access to the crypt, it is already flooding and crumbling, and he is only able to carry Helene's body away. The two share a touching moment together outside, only to have Helene begin to rapidly decompose and melt. Katrina's familiar hawk flies away as Helene turns to nothing.
Production notes
Corman decided to make the movie to take advantage of sets left over from The Raven. He paid Leo Gordon $1,600 to write a script, and made a deal with Boris Karloff to be available for three days filming for a small amount of money plus a deferred payment of $15,000 that would be paid if the film earned more than $150,000.[2][3]
Karloff's scenes were shot in three days by Corman. Corman then sent Francis Ford Coppola to Big Sur for three days to shoot additional footage. He ended up staying eleven days. Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Jack Nicholson also directed some scenes.
Leftover sets from other AIP films were used when shooting the film, notably those from The Haunted Palace, a Vincent Price horror film made earlier the same year. The tree against which Sandra Knight expires in The Terror is the same one to which Price was tied and burned in The Haunted Palace.
The uniform worn by Jack Nicholson was used by Marlon Brando in Désirée (1954).[2]
Later version
Today, the film is in the public domain since there is no copyright notice in the credits for the film.
In the early 1990s, actor Dick Miller, who plays Karloff's major domo, was hired to shoot new scenes to use as a framing sequence for an overseas version of The Terror. Under this scheme, the main action of the film is presented in flashback. This was done for Corman to establish some sort of copyright in the movie. Dick Miller says the payment for these scenes was the most he had ever received from Corman.[2]
Legacy
In May 1966 Corman told Karloff he would not be getting his deferred $15,000 since the film never made $150,000. However he said he would pay the money if Karloff worked on a new undetermined future project for Corman. This turned out to be the 1968 Peter Bogdanovich movie Targets, which extensively used clips from The Terror.[3]
In 2010, the film was featured in the second episode of the revived, syndicated TV series, Elvira's Movie Macabre.
Karloff was only paid his deferred fee once he agreed to be in Targets.[2]
Home Video
The Terror, restored from original 35mm elements, was released April 26, 2011 from Film Chest and HD Cinema Classics. It is presented in widescreen with an aspect ratio of 16 x 9 and 5.1 surround sound mix. Enclosed is a collectible postcard reproduction of the original movie poster and special features include Spanish subtitles, before-and-after film restoration demo and trailer.[4][5]
United States