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.
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.
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.