Details
Movie Description
Horror legend Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson team up in this disjointed but enjoyable Roger Corman quickie. Nicholson plays Lieutenant Andre Duvalier, an officer under Napoleon who finds himself lost along a stretch of beach, where he is seduced by the beautiful Helene (Sandra Knight), who may or may not be a ghost. His obsession leads him to the gloomy castle of Baron Von Leppe (Karloff), a recluse haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, Ilse, who Andre suspects is actually Helene, or vice versa. Longtime Corman regular Dick Miller plays Stefan, Von Leppe's trusty servant, and Dorothy Neumann is a witch who may be using Helene as a tool for revenge. All the characters do lots of skulking around the gloomy sets and outdoors along the beautiful Big Sur coastline, where the exteriors were filmed. Corman shot the interior scenes in two days, on sets left standing from his previous film, THE RAVEN. Though a little short on coherence, it's a lot of fun, and it's great to see Karloff and Nicholson together in a sort of passing of the torch. A nicely ominous mood maintains itself with the help of Ronald Stein's robust score.
Synopsis
Intrigued and entranced by a mysteriously elusive woman, an officer in Napoleon's army follows the object of his desires into a baron's eerie castle. But then the French lieutenant discovers that he's trapped inside with a baron who's not all there, in search of a woman who keeps disappearing before his eyes.
Film Notes
"I had the weekend off before the last week of shooting THE RAVEN. I was going to play tennis and it rained."--Corman's explanation for filming THE TERROR
After completing principal indoor photography in two days, Corman sent some of his protégés out to Big Sur, California, to film the outdoor scenes. These directors included screenwriter Jack Hill (who would later go on to make FOXY BROWN and COFFY with Pam Grier) and Hill's UCLA classmate Francis Coppola (who would later make THE GODFATHER with Marlon Brando). Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson also had a crack at it. Each director added his own ideas about the story, which accounts for the confusion. Feeling the footage still a little dull, Corman shot a few extra scenes at the conclusion, adding a twist ending to the story.
Costar Sandra Knight was married to Nicholson at the time of filming and was pregnant with their daughter, Jennifer.
"It was the only completely scripted story in the history of Hollywood film in which there is no story."--Jack Nicholson
An extract from this film was used for the drive-in movie sequence in Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS.
DVD Features
Region 1 Encoding
Jack Nicholson Biography
Theatrical Trailer
Snap Case
Quotations
"I'm sorry, sir, but surely I made enough noise to waken the dead."--Andre (Jack Nicholson) to Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff)
"I may not enter the house of God. I have made my pact with another!"--the witch (Dorothy Neumann)
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