hrkepler
'The Terror' is low budgeted Roger Corman's quickie. The film got made only because Corman had opportunity to use sets left over from previous AIP productions and Boris Karloff for two days. The film is often linked with Corman's Poe themed series, but 'The Terror' is not based on any Poe's stories.In a year 1806 a French Army officer Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) gets separated from his troops and gets lost. After meeting a beautiful woman named Helene (Sandra Knight) on the beach, he starts to investigate who the mysterious woman is. Duvalier finds himself as a guest in the castle of Baron von Leppe (Boris Karloff) and learns that girl on the beach is like two drops of water with Baron's wife Ilsa who died twenty years ago. And all sorts of mysterious things start to happen.When reading about Karloff's memories about making the movie, I think that this much story was actually written when Corman showed the script to him. There are many interesting scenes and nice acting, but all together the film was quite a mess. After editing was done Corman had to go back and film a scene between Nicholson and Dick Miller with them explaining the plot.Not the best film, but curiously interesting enough to check it out. The film which production is much more interesting story than the actual film itself.And it stars Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller. With these three, count me in.
LakiM9
Just seen this movie. I have to say that I like Corman's work with minimal budget and this movie is just one of those. It is really incredible to see Jack Nicholson even before "Ride in the Whirlwind" and Karloff at the end of his career. For a movie shot with only 6(!) actors it is very nice done. Although it has a cliché story for horrors about undead, development of the story is nice. Its cinematography is also done nice. It's the definitive cream of B-movies and cream of Corman's production(It's made for a few days on a set of his past film, "Raven"). The scenes with Nicholson and the woman are straight out of the creepiest and most mysterious in Corman's work.
Hitchcoc
This is, at times, a decent effort to tell a story. But when budgets get into the mix, things fall apart. I believe this was Nicholson's first film. Roger Corman is the director and how the two hooked up, I don't know. What I do know is that there are so many plots and subplots and errant visuals that half the time we don't know what is going on. I decided years ago that I would watch Karloff and Nicholson do their individual things and not worry about being fulfilled cinematically. They are both classic muggers for the camera. This is a ghost/witch story with people dying and the wrong people accused of killing them and a crazy castle. On and on and on. The film, which is normal length, seems about five hours long.
InjunNose
A movie's reputation is never enhanced when it falls into the public domain, and "The Terror" was not highly regarded in the first place. But if the viewer looks past the film's lowly status (and the grainy, washed-out prints that have circulated on television, videocassette and DVD for decades), this period melodrama from Roger Corman proves to be a sturdy source of chills and atmosphere. Star attraction Boris Karloff is joined by Corman regulars Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze as AIP's most famous director weaves the tale of Andre Duvalier (Nicholson), a lieutenant in Napoleon's army, who--having been separated from his regiment--is wandering half-delirious along the Prussian seacoast when he encounters a beautiful mystery woman (Sandra Knight, Nicholson's wife at the time). Her name is Helene, and she is mentally and emotionally unwell...or her name is Ilsa, and she is a ghost. Ultimately, Duvalier's search for the woman takes him to the castle of the eccentric, evasive Baron von Leppe (Karloff). For me, Nicholson's performance is the least enjoyable aspect of "The Terror"; his character is a young snot-nose, and it's not hard to tell that he's essentially playing himself. But Karloff is always fun to watch, Sandra Knight projects fantastic charisma as the alluringly spooky Helene/Ilsa, and Ronald Stein's sweeping, bombastic score enhances the film's Gothic mood. Corman said that "The Terror" has an incomprehensible plot, and he was right...but it's also intriguing, creepy and (mostly) pleasing to the eye. What more can you ask of a hastily scripted, low-budget horror film? Six and a half stars.
AD
