talisencrw The only way the so-called 'Ring of Terror' could have been even worse is if it had been hemorrhoidal in nature.When I was in my undergraduate days, I took my girlfriend out for Chinese food, and my fortune cookie read: 'You see the good in everything.' Indeed that was true, and especially in my movie-watching, I try to imagine all of the effort, and the blood, sweat and tears, that goes into a film's gestation. Thankfully, I paid very little for this film (director Paylow's only cinematic feature), and it only took 71 minutes of my time.To its credit, it had an intriguing start, with an eerie atmosphere to its opening credits. But the introduction by the cemetery's custodian, 'R.J. Dobson', (complete with his crazed cat, 'Puma') was the first clue to me that something just wasn't right. But openings like that, with Dobson showing a tombstone, starting to explain how the death at such a young age occurred, then the flashback occurring, at least gave me the false hope that this could be a 'horror anthology', and that no matter how bad a piece was, at least others would come that might be better. But no.This had no credibility in any manner whatsoever. In its depiction of college life, particularly for the medical students (who bizarrely were all male), it was obvious the filmmakers had no idea whatsoever of human nature, or the way that people of that age group interacted. There were no horrific aspects whatsoever, and all of the resoundingly minor attempts at comedy fell disgustingly flat. Any high-school play from the era would have more life. What makes this the second-worst film I have ever seen is that, for all intents and purposes, everyone involved thought they were making something credible, and were giving it their all (nothing could surpass Lena Dunham's 'Tiny Furniture' as the very worst film of all time IMHO). What surprises me is that Paylow would eventually be involved, in different capacities, in two of the very best films of the 70's ('Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'The Conversation'). Obviously he was a talented man who, at least in the director's chair for this film, didn't deliver the goods, though by no stretch of the imagination was it his fault alone.

MartinHafer Life must have been very, very tough in the early 1960s, as the college students in this film look older than me in many cases--and I'm 45! In addition, the 'students' talk very much like a square adult's idea of what 'those crazy kids' should sound like! Frankly, it was a bit embarrassing seeing these middle-aged folks cavorting about and acting like Archie, Jughead and the gang! The focus for this film is on the medical students (most of which look like they will be collecting social security benefits very, very soon). The class is beginning their work on cadavers and they are naturally far from excited about this--except for Moffitt who seems to enjoy the whole thing.As far as the plot goes, I think my daughter summed it up best near the end of the film when she yelled out "can SOMETHING interesting happen soon?!". The answer, sadly, was NO--at least not until 53 minutes into the film! The film just meanders and is boring beyond belief....and occasionally offensive (such as during the beauty(??) pageant). At the 53 minute mark, there is very bad recreation of an old urban legend about the cemetery and the grave site---but, frankly, at this point in the film, who cares?! Overall, a really dull dud...and nothing happens to justify watching any of this schlocky film.

Mark Honhorst The plot for this movie can be described in one very short sentence.(SPOILERS AHEAD,IF ANYONE CARES!!!) A medical student attempts to steal the ring of some dead guy's finger as a practical joke (or something, I don't really remember), gets scared,and dies. The End. I just revealed the entire movie to you, but at least I mentioned that there would be spoilers... I really don't know why anyone would have sat through this movie without MST3K. Or how, for that matter. It's just bad. Really bad. The quality of the Mill Creek 50 pack version is even worse than the quality of the MST3K version. Please, heed my warning. Avoid Ring of Terror at all costs!

mgconlan-1 I wouldn't call this the worst movie ever made (I'd save that dubious honor for "Shriek of the Mutilated," which I once made the mistake of watching on a local MST3K-type show called "Schlock Theatre" in San Diego in the early 1980's) but it's certainly right up there. Starting with the ponderous opening scene in the cemetery with that idiot narrator (who makes Criswell's contribution to "Plan Nine from Outer Space" seem brilliant by comparison) chasing his cat around the set (the cat, showing more intelligence than any of the humans connected with this film on either side of the camera, kept trying to get away), to the sequence in which the narrator gives away the entire plot (you can't write a "spoiler" about this film because the filmmakers already did it for you!) to the main part of the film in which a bunch of distinctly long-in-the-tooth actors you never otherwise heard of attempt to impersonate college students, to the soporific pacing and dialogue delivery and the fact that nothing happens until the very last few minutes of the movie, this film is just dull, dull, DULL! You keep wondering where's the ring, where's the terror, and what's the point of this film's existence. Even the MST3K crew couldn't make this entertaining, though they did have a lot of fun lampooning the, uh, "advanced" ages of the cast members.