AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Filipe Neto This film was my first contact with the vast cinematographic work of William Castle, director whom I didn't know. Despite having thought of his films as horror, it's more funny and silly than scary. At no point did I feel scared and I ended up laughing, without feeling that the movie was damaged by it. The film is a classic and creates a pleasant suspense, without the tension and chill that we get used to. I loved some sound effects that, in another movie, would have been the pinnacle of cliché because they're out of context. Ghosts are interesting special effects, certainly the best at the time. The actors do a solid and competent job, in particular Donald Woods, Charles Herbert and Martin Milner. The movie is not great, but it's certainly a classic of entertainment, made to spend some good time more than to delight.

jacobjohntaylor1 This is a great horror film. A family i.n.h.e.r.e.n.t.s a house from when the father's uncle passes away. The house is haunted. This is one of the scariest movie made before 2001. The remake from 2001 is better. But still this a very scary movie. It has a great story line. It also had great acting. It also has great special effects. If you like really scary movies. Then you need to see this movie. Charles Herbert is a great actor. He was also in The Fly witch is a great movie. This one is better. Jo Morrow is a great actress. Donald Woods was a great actor. Rosemary D.e.C.a.m.p was a great actress. Margaret H.a.m.i.t.o.n was great actress. This is a great movie. See it.

AaronCapenBanner William Castle directed this amusing comedy/thriller about the Zorba family, who have just inherited a house from Cyrus's(played by Donald Woods) uncle, a reclusive inventor who created a set of special goggles that enable the viewer to see the 12 ghosts said to haunt the home. So wife Hilda(played by Rosemary De Camp) daughter Madea(played by Jo Morrow) and son Buck(played by Charles Herbert) move in, to discover that the ghosts are real, and that there is a hidden treasure in the house, and that someone will kill to find it, thus creating the 13th ghost... Fun film used the "Illusion-O" gimmick of giving film goers tinted glasses so that they can also see the ghosts with the characters. Margaret Hamilton and Martin Milner costar in effective roles.

LobotomousMonk The opening shots are accompanied by screams and shrieks as the frame is filled with still shots of ghost drawings. At the heart of this story is something familiar - a child's wish. Unfortunately, despite a theme of transparency, the story gets convoluted and hazy with the wishes and desires of many other characters. The strongest element of the story is thus diluted much like the images of the ghosts themselves. The direction of Castle is nothing too spectacular either. The juxtaposition of daytime 3-pt lighting set-ups with the shadowy noir lighting setups in the haunted house are rendered disjointed through rushed ellipses in the script. The framing and staging/blocking is too tableau and renders the performances seemingly stilted. Some of the tricks are a little too cute (a fly is zapped by Zorba's "ghost viewers" why!?). Castle gets some inspiration from Margaret Hamilton who he was able to cast much better this time (Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven was a waste) and he frames her well with low angle shots and obscure lighting in the backgrounds of her shots. There are plot contrivances (as always with Castle) with the most ludicrous being that the family would stay in a house where they had all clearly witnessed a supernatural act (Dad explains that they are all just tired and therefore suggestive - doubtful the audience would relate to this sentiment). The questions raised by the audience regarding subletting are not addressed while White and Castle seem to think it is sufficient to infuse the script with a song-and-dance about potential auctioning of the house if contracts are not followed to the letter. A bunch of naive characters presumes a naive audience (never a good thing) and as mentioned above, the story would have rung truer had it focused on the possibility of a deeper connection between the ghosts and the little boy (maybe even a psychic one). The Dark Castle lot tromps through all the failures of this film to make an even bigger mess in the remake (in the remake, the little boy doesn't even care about the ghosts - not even the one of his own mother!). The effectiveness of the gimmick of Illusion-O is about as thin as their plastic you look through to see the ghosts on screen. That being said, the masses love novel souvenirs and Castle comes through on that end this time.