AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

morrison-dylan-fan Planning to catch up on some TV and movie viewings over the weekend,I decided that I would kick the weekend off with a short and sweet Horror flick. Checking a box set that fellow IMDber Red-Barracuda had kindly sent me,I found a title that sounded like it would be a less than tormenting viewing.The plot:Becoming engaged to Meg Hubbard, Tom Stewart gets told by his old bit of skirt on the side Vi Mason that she will tell Hubbard about his cheating ways. Discussing this on the top of a lighthouse (mmm...) Mason leans on a loose railing and falls. Stewart has the chance to save her,but goes ho-hum and lets Mason fall to her death. Seeing her body floating in the water,Stewart goes to get it,but finds that it has transformed into seaweed. Thinking the matter is sorted,Stewart focuses on the wedding,but soon gets a ghostly torment.View on the film:Spotting the lighthouse before crashing into the low-rent Poverty Row rocks of the era, co-writer/ (with George Worthing Yates) director Bert I. Gordon & Kiss Me Deadly cinematographer Ernest Laszlo actually put some real effort into the movie,with the limited space of the lighthouse being caught in tight corner shots. Whilst they do throw in the usual things on visible wire tricks of the era, Gordon and Laszlo actually use neat trick shots to torment Stewart with overlapping images of ghostly footsteps and tracking shots to a broken playing record,and a walk down the aisle that smells the flowers with the stench of death.Teaming up with Them! Writer George Worthing Yates,the screenplay by Yates and Gordon puts the ghostly tale on Film Noir rocks,with a great thick line in pessimism that brings child killing to Stewart's mind. Making the relationships he has with women cynical, the writers bring out the tormenting with ghostly whispers boiling Stewart's mind, and leading to a bitter "romantic" ending. Haunted by the eerie screams Juli Reding gives Vi, Richard Carlson peels his beefcake looks off,as Stewart becomes tormented.

mark.waltz Extremely poor quality photography and a tinny sound make this barely watchable, saved by the content going on rather than what was going on with the technicians. The film really starts with a thud (literally) when a beautiful woman falls to her death with a shattering scream from a lighthouse and isn't helped by the man she's involved in an argument with. This sequence is ultra disturbing because you know this woman is terrified for an extended period of time and knows she's on the verge of an accidental death. She may not be murdered, but the man who could have saved her (Richard Carlson, a minor matinée idol from the late 30's/early 40's) seems thrilled by her sudden departure from his life. She doesn't leave him alone, however, and when he's suddenly engaged to another woman, she begins haunting him, although whether or not it is her ghost or just his conscience is never determined.There are some genuinely spooky moments here, and if you can get past the cheap look, you might find it thrilling. The special effects aren't extraordinary, although what they do use actually might bring shivers down your spine. This doomed young beauty's ghost is a frightening presence, and as her "visits" to Carlson continue, they get more and more threatening, setting up for a conclusion which proves to be both horrific and even slightly profound. The cast tries to do what they can to overshadow the weak camera work and poor sound equipment, but they seem a bit amateurish under the circumstances. Still, there's some genuine frights to be found here, and some of them might bring on a few nightmares of your own.

BA_Harrison Jazz pianist Tom is a hit with the girls: not only is he all set to marry pretty young blonde Meg (who is quite the catch, coming from a very wealthy family) but he's also being pestered by voluptuous ex-flame Vi, who is still besotted with the musician. Hell, even his fiancé's 9 year old sister wants a piece of the smooth ivory tickler!In a last ditch effort to win back her man, Vi tracks down Tom to a derelict lighthouse where she threatens to reveal some of the jazz player's dirty secrets unless he comes back to her; during the ensuing heated argument, Vi leans against a faulty railing and is left hanging on for her life over jagged rocks. Despite her pleas for help, Tom leaves her to fall to her death, a course of action he begins to regret when her spirit comes back to haunt him.Tormented, a silly but still rather fun supernatural flick from legendary B-movie director Bert I. Gordon, also goes by the title 'Tormented... by the She-Ghost of Haunted Island!' which gives a much better idea of the cheezy goodness to be found within. The ghost effects are mostly crude and consequently very amusing, the dialogue is hilarious (especially Joe Turkel as a creepy tugboat captain who spouts beatnik slang) and the plot quite ridiculous. There are occasional hints of genuine creepiness, such as the scene in which a record repeatedly plays by itself, but a loud and crazy jazz soundtrack generally detracts from whatever spooky atmosphere there might otherwise have been.After the extreme tackiness of all that has gone before—the disembodied head, the crawling hand, the moaning spectre—Tormented's wonderfully downbeat ending comes as something of a (welcome) surprise: Tom considers killing his fiancé's young sister, falls from the lighthouse, and is reunited in death with Vi, whose corpse is discovered wearing the wedding ring that Tom had bought for Meg.

lepoisson-1 I do not understand how people found this movie scary or even vaguely engaging. The script, acting and effects all compete for last place. If I had been young enough to be scared by this, I would have been put off by the mushy parts. What age group was this aimed at? Were we really that unsophisticated in 1960?Spoilers (coincidentally also known as my favorite parts): The screaming detached head. The crashed wedding where the spirit wilts the flowers. The guide dog which leads in random directions with respect to the blind woman. The cool talking ship captain. It just gets better as it progresses. Set the bar low and prepare to be entertained. Ed Woods would be proud!