The Terror - Castle of Terror
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Terror - Castle of Terror |
| Original title | The terror |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Roger Corman Francis Ford Coppola Jack Hill Monte Hellman Jack Nicholson |
| script |
Leo Gordon Jack Hill Roger Corman |
| production | Roger Corman Harvey Jacobson Francis Ford Coppola |
| music | Ronald Stein |
| camera | John M. Nickolaus, Jr. |
| cut | Stuart O'Brien |
| occupation | |
| |
The Terror is an American low-budget film directed by Roger Corman from 1963, which uses motifs from European popular beliefs . The main characters of the 19th century settled horror film be from Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff shown.
The plot is based on early modern tales about a " white woman " - a ghost that is said to have haunted several castles of European noble families. In addition, the medieval phenomenon of witchcraft is treated.
action
Germany , 1806 : The Napoleonic soldier Lt. André Duvalier is lost and is half dying of thirst along a beach when an unknown woman in white appears out of nowhere and leads him to drinking water, only to disappear in the same way in the floods of the sea. André then plunges into the sea to allegedly rescue him, but is overwhelmed by the waves and loses consciousness.
When he comes to, André is in the forest hut of Katrina, a sullen, elderly witch whose mindless and allegedly silent captor Gustaf saved him and brought him to her. When he asks about the white woman on the beach who introduced herself to him as Helen, he is accused of hallucinations that there is no young woman in the area that matches his description. However, he remains stubborn and leaves the hut indignant to the protest of the witch to go in person to search for Helen. At nightfall he actually meets her at a pond , but is seduced by her before he can elicit any information from her. When André almost falls victim to quicksand afterwards , Gustaf appears, who had followed him, saves his life for the second time and tells him that he can meet the young woman, who has since disappeared without a trace, at the nearby castle of the Baron von Leppe Find. He also advises him to inquire about a man named Eric. For reasons unknown, he had only faked the old woman's silence. Back at the witch's hut, the witch claims that the information is wrong and urgently advises the soldier not to go anywhere near the castle, which has been uninhabited for a long time. The next morning he set off for Leppe Castle amid warnings and threats.
Once there, he sees the woman in white at a window before the baron personally opens the door for him and reluctantly lets the soldier in. When he asks about the mysterious woman, he is assured that there is no one living in the castle except the house servant Stefan and His Highness himself. A portrait of Baroness Ilsa, who died in 1782, causes even more confusion, in which André recognizes the supposed Helen. When there were haunted apparitions on the castle grounds during the night and he watched the woman from the beach enter a crypt from the window of his room, he followed her outside, where he was intercepted by Stefan and learned that it was the crypt the late Baroness who has been sealed since her death. Angry because of the servant's unfriendly tone, André asks him about Erik, but receives no satisfactory answers. When he then turns to the old woman in the forest, Stefan's interest seems to be aroused. He leads the soldier back to his room and then tells his master about the hiding place of the long-sought witch who has been feuding with the baron for several years . Von Leppe makes it clear to his servant that the guest is undesirable and should leave the castle as soon as possible. However, he prevents Stefan from throwing the Napoleonic soldier out, since such an act is not entitled to a baron.
Stefan makes his way to the witch's hut for espionage purposes and watches how she practices black magic and necromancy . Meanwhile, André confronts Baron von Leppe in the castle, who tells him that he murdered his wife with his own hands when he found her with another man after his return from military service. This man is said to have been Erik, after he was supposed to inquire. Her ghost has haunted the property restlessly for 20 years.
When André rushes into the baron's room unannounced in search of the wife that night, the host's hospitality is no longer worth it and he, indignant, sends the soldier with one of his horses from his country. The soldier rides along the beach and sees the witch servant Gustaf on a ledge, who is then attacked by the witch in the form of an eagle, so that he falls down the cliff. André rushes to his aid, but can only hear his last words saying that he should return and free the woman in white from the curse.
He does this and meets her in the crypt of the castle, where she talks about fear and then disappears again when he briefly lets her out of his sight. He then watches how the baron, lured by her voice, runs through a secret passage into the crypt, where she swears eternal love to the old man, eaten up by remorse and grief. When André storms down, however, he can only determine that they have disappeared again. The baron passes out. Together with Stefan, André carries the landlord into his room before a red light lures them into the baroness's former room, which has remained untouched and locked since her death. After André broke open the door, they surprisingly find a cradle there, among other things, but Stefan assures that he does not know anything about a child of the baroness. Then the baron comes into the room, furious and instructs Stefan to lead the unwanted guest out with a pistol and shoot him if there is resistance. In the forecourt, the soldier defends himself vigorously and knocks Stefan unconscious. He walks back to the chapel in front of the crypt, where he meets Katrina. This reveals to him that Erik, the illegitimate partner of the Baroness von Leppe, was her son and had been murdered by the baron. Stefan who has come to again seems to be surprised at the relationship between Erik and the witch. They learn from him that he himself killed the baron and that Erik was taking his place without his knowledge.
In the meantime, the spirit of the baroness, manipulated by her, reappears in the master's room and encourages him to drown himself with her in the crypt, which is connected to the sea by a lock, in order to find eternal peace together. Now completely addicted to madness, the baron makes his way through his secret passage to where the woman's voice prompts him to open her coffin and look at her after he has opened the lock that guides the sea tide into the room . In the coffin, however, he finds nothing but a decayed carcass, whereupon the white woman appears and confronts him with the truth. She must drive him to suicide to break the curse and find peace. It physically prevents him from closing the lock or from escaping.
When the witch tells the two men in front of the crypt about her plans for revenge , the baron with the help of the spirit of his murdered wife to commit suicide in the worst of all sins, both storm into the chapel and drag the witch with them, who is on the holy ground as a follower of Satan goes up in flames and dies a fire death .
André destroys the entrance to the crypt and storms in to "save" the white woman, Stefan hopes to be able to bring his master to safety. Both plunge into the seawater flowing into it. Due to the masses of water, the crypt and the attached chapel begin to collapse, and the two castle residents, the baron and his servant, who is loyal to death, are slain by stones that fall on them while fighting the ghost.
André can save the baroness's restless ghost outside and kisses him. Realizing that she has finally found peace, the White Lady melts in front of his eyes.
Origin and publication history
Pre-production and casting
As a B-movie director Roger Corman in 1962 with the shooting of the Edgar Allan Poe film version The Raven - Duel of the Wizards was busy, he came claims to be on a rainy Sunday spontaneously the idea of the elaborate sets for a small-scale production reuse. Thereupon he drafted a plot "freely based on Poe" and commissioned his friend and colleague at the time, Jack Hill , to write a script in a hurry. The cast was largely composed of the ensemble from Der Rabe .
At that time, the then 75-year-old Karloff was already considered a legend of horror cinema, which was due to his heyday in the 1930s and 1940s as an actor in several horror classics by Universal . Because Corman was able to finish filming The Raven three days earlier than planned, Karloff was available for The Terror for those three days .
Jack Nicholson first worked with Corman in 1958 at the age of 21 in the film Cry Baby Killer and has since taken supporting roles in several of his films, including Little Shop Full of Horrors and The Raven . In the hope of making his breakthrough, he took on the male lead in The Terror and at the same time suggested his girlfriend Sandra Knight for the female lead. Screenwriter Jack Hill called him a "gruesome actor," but put his opinion into perspective years later.
production
Corman was unable to direct the parallel production of The Raven himself for union reasons, so he entrusted his mentee Francis Ford Coppola , who years later would become one of the most important American filmmakers, with the task. So the shooting of The Terror began with no more than six actors. The film was shot for three days in October 1962 in the sets of The Raven and a few months later the sets of The Torture Chamber of the Witch Hunter were used again. In between, the film was also shot outdoors on a beach and in a forest.
In the following weeks, due to lack of time on the part of those involved, the director switched from Coppola to Monte Hellman to Jack Hill again, until only one day of shooting remained and no suitable staff could be found. In the situation, lead actor Jack Nicholson is said to have said to Corman: "Roger, every damn idiot in Hollywood directed this movie, please let me take care of the last day." Problems arose, however, when the filmed scenes were to be edited into a feature film, as the different styles of the various directors did not harmonize with one another and the plot made little sense because each of them had different ideas. Corman, who at the time (April 1963) was already working on his new film, The Torture Chamber of the Witch Hunters , took the time to shoot two additional scenes with Nicholson, Knight and Miller in the sets after the shooting ended To shed light on the plot. Karloff is said to have been surprised when the additional scenes taught him the true background of the baron he was portraying. In a 2008 interview, Corman called The Terror the craziest movie he'd ever made.
Theatrical release
The cinema premiere took place on June 17, 1963 in Buffalo , New York ; The Terror was first shown in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1981. The theatrical distribution in the USA was carried out by American International Pictures , no box office data are known.
Video market
Since The Terror as " public domain " material is not subject to copyright and can therefore be legally distributed by anyone, there have been dozens of DVD releases of the film worldwide since 1997, most of which are cheap pressings and generally rejected due to poor picture and sound quality become. In Germany the film was first released on DVD by ems new media in 2000 ; However, due to various defects, including the lack of the original soundtrack, sales remained low. Since 2006, the NUM label has also been offering the film under the title Terror House - Das Haus des Todes as a single press and in a box ( Horror Collection ) with White Zombie and Windigo - The Night of Horror .
In 2011, the US label HD Cinema Classics re- scanned and completely revised the image material for a new release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in order to free the image from film grain and any other damage. At the same time, an HD master was created and the sound was remixed to create 5.1 surround sound . On April 26th, a “Blu-Ray + DVD Combo Pack” with the original movie poster as a cover image was launched on the video market in the United States ; In Germany, Savoy Film released the restored version on July 22nd on Blu-Ray Disc and DVD separately, with both the English and German soundtracks in DTS-HD .
Reviews
The Terror was well received by critics in the United States and Europe . In the lexicon of international film , the film is described as "[a] thematically somewhat confused, but thanks to its atmospheric density and dramaturgical qualities remarkable horror film with an appealing production history" .
Roger Corman said: “The weirdest thing [...] was that we got pretty good reviews. The critics were so busy trying to figure out what The Terror is about that they didn't realize how bad the film was. "
Web links
- The Terror - The Innocents in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Terror in the online movie database
- The Terror as a complete film in theInternet Archive
- The Terror - Schloß des Schreckens in the German dubbing index
- The Terror - The Innocents at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Die Zeit : Get out, as fast as you can! , Katja Nicodemus, December 31, 2008
- ↑ IMDb : Participating companies , accessed on July 25, 2011
- ↑ OFDb : Version on Terror, The (1)
- ↑ OFDb: Version on Terror, The (2)
- ↑ OFDb: Version on Terror, The (3)
- ↑ The Terror - Castle of Terror. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .