11/10/06 The Terror

The Terror (1963), directed by Roger Corman & Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, Jack Nicholson

watched solo; DVD (personal copy) @ home & car ride (Raleigh, NC)

The film itself is quite terrible, in the best of senses. It means to be nothing more than a shoe-string budget B-horror flick (it was shot in something like three days), yet it comprises some major talent and major cult status all in one helping. Credited as being directed by shock/sleaze godfather Corman (producer of "X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes," "Caged Heat," "Rock 'N' Roll High School Forever," and "Death Race 2000"), it also had the un-credited fortune of involving some other big names (in both the world of campy fare and eventually Oscar-nominated respectability)...including Jack Hill (of "Big Bird Cage," "Foxy Brown," and "Switchblade Sisters" fame), Monte Hellman (exploitative "Cockfighter" and "Two-Lane Blacktop"), Francis Ford Coppola (yeah, "Godfather" trilogy ring a bell?), and Jack Nicholson (wait 'til they get a load of him). With that impressive, yet at the time mostly unheard of expertise...this was sure to be an amateur's lesson in filmmaking. Well, to a certain extent it was...in what not to do, but what will most likely happen. You will end up with a great idea gone bad. It's not for lack of trying (if you can call three days worth of shooting trying), but more likely just lack of resources that force this hand of horror into something rather tame and bland. Nicholson plays Lt. Duvalier, who is an officer in Napoleon's army that just so happens to pursue a woman into a dark castle. Upon his arrival, Duvalier is sucked into a macabre world of the castle's Baron (played by the decrepit Boris Karloff), and witches and evil spirits and blah blah blah. All the supernatural treachery in the world (or in the talent-filled room) could save this from the shelves of "MST3K" and its eternal library of maddening mediocrity. It's still fun to say that I watched it, enjoyed it for the unintentional laughs, and proved to myself that even the most talented of artists struggle to reach the level of success that we all pursue. And some like Boris Karloff, just hit that peak and take a nose-dive.

2 out of 5 stars